


Nobody Wants To Be An Omega

by LeafyGreenQueen773



Series: Come On, Spider-Man [1]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: A/B/O, Alpha Wade, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, BAMF Peter Parker, Bottom Peter Parker/Top Wade Wilson, Dubious Consent, Hints of Peter Parker/Michelle Jones, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Omega Peter Parker, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Virgin Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 06:14:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 164,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14586750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeafyGreenQueen773/pseuds/LeafyGreenQueen773
Summary: After he was bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker's life was swept up in a whirlwind of high-tech suits, hectic fights, and rubbing elbows with New York's finest heroes.  At least he knew one thing: it was easier to be a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man as an independent Beta.  But when his late presentation as an Omega nearly gets him killed, he has to face the truth: his life is anything but easy.  Especially when the Alpha who gets to help him through his heats is the one and only Merc With A Mouth.





	1. Hot Under the Collar

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Some Wounds Were Never Meant to Be Healed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851231) by [vulcanhighblood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcanhighblood/pseuds/vulcanhighblood). 



> Obviously this work is based on the property of Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Archive warnings may change in the future. This is the first story I've posted to AO3, so I apologize for any issues with formatting. Any comments and critiques are more than welcome; I aspire to be a writer, so I always want to get better!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously this work is based on the property of Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Archive warnings may change in the future. This is the first story I've posted to AO3, so I apologize for any issues with formatting. Any comments and critiques are more than welcome; I aspire to be a writer, so I always want to get better!
> 
> Edit: I had a request to add Non-Con/Dub-Con tags. I added Dub-Con because I feel that warning is more accurate. It may change in the future to Non-Con depending on where the story goes.

The sound of sirens pierced Peter's ears. He had been slumped over, splay-legged, his head resting on his forearms, trying not to fall asleep in his politics lecture. Now, however, he was wide awake. It was hard enough to block out the various little sounds that went on in a classroom setting. Pencils thwacking against the covers of textbooks, the clock cracking each second out like a gunshot, the way Ned's nose whistled almost imperceptibly every time he inhaled – Peter had learned to focus through the sensory input. But sirens, he couldn't ignore.

 

On the other hand, his classmates all looked as though they could sleep through just about anything. Only a couple of Alphas, who had more sensitive hearing than others, had even glanced toward the window. Nobody had even noticed that “Penis” Parker, the distant, nerdy Beta, had shot bolt upright, scanning the wide swath of windows on the east side of the classroom, waiting for telltale flashing lights. Nobody except Michelle, who had briefly glared at him out of the edge of her vision before returning her gaze to her copy of Nietzsche's “Beyond Good and Evil.” Peter swallowed and glanced at the clock.

 

Thirteen minutes left of class.

 

The sirens were  _ woo _ -ing ever closer, and now Peter could see red, flashing light tinting the edge of the upper windowpane. Of course the police cars were speeding by below his view out the window, but he knew they were there. The practically deafening sound was proof of that.

 

He shot his hand into the air and waited all of two seconds before losing his patience and saying loudly, “May I use the bathroom?” Ms. Gonzalez, somewhat startled, shot him a look not unlike the one that Michelle had sent his way a moment before. Peter tried to look as innocent as possible.

 

“I would appreciate it if you could wait until class is over, Mr. Parker.”  She gestured toward scribbled text on the whiteboard. “You’re not going to get out of the assignment, you know.  Everyone is writing the essay about the logical flaws in the Sokovia Accords and the aftermath of the battle of the Avengers in Germany.”

 

_ I definitely know more about it than you do, _ Peter thought impatiently, entertaining briefly the thought of Ms. Gonzalez’s face if he were to turn in the essay in the first person.  Still, he stood up and sidled past Ned's desk toward the door. “Essay, Sokovia, Germany, superheroes, got it. Sorry, I really gotta go.” He was out the door before Ms. Gonzalez could get another coherent sentence to him.

 

It was a short sprint to his locker. He spun his code, grabbed his backpack, and slammed the door shut, the groaning of the metal ringing in his ears along with the now-fading sirens. It would have been a straight shot to the front door if he didn't need to avoid Principal Morita, who was coming out of his office at that very moment. A few seconds of crouching behind a trophy case, and he was home free.

 

As the November air hit his face, Peter couldn't help but think that this what he lived for. It had been about a month and a half since he'd been forced to set aside his life as Spider-Man, even very briefly, after the Staten Island Ferry incident. But now, with his high-tech suit back, Queens was essentially his oyster. And he had promised Mr. Stark that he would be a “friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.” If that meant stopping petty theft most of the time, so be it. However, he figured the occasional felony-scale activity was something he could assist the police in handling. Even though he didn't always know what they were for, he had a habit of following police cars with their sirens on now. If it was something he could help with, he'd swoop in and save the day. If not, he'd watch in case there was something he could do. Already he'd saved a middle-aged woman from a fire in a restaurant kitchen, webbed up a burglar who was escaping from a mini-mart, and stopped a high-speed chase (or as high as a speed could get, in Queens).

 

Today, Peter was in the mood for something exciting.

 

He ducked into an alley a few blocks from his school, in the general direction that the sirens were headed. It had taken the loss of five backpacks to learn not to web them to dumpsters, so instead he wrestled into his suit, slammed his chest to make the fabric skin-tight, and slung his backpack on again. If he was about to get into a tussle, he'd ditch it somewhere safe and come back for it.  **Hello, Peter,** Karen greeted in his ear.

 

“Hey, Karen, we're gonna go check out those sirens,” he told his suit absent-mindedly, judging his surroundings and double-checking his web shooters.

 

Normally, Peter would have instantly shot a web up to the corner of the nearest building to get airborne as fast as possible. Somehow, though, something was different. As he placed his hand on wall of the alley, felt his hand catch the textured brick, and began to climb, there was an odd tightness about him. A strange prickling sensation, unlike his usual spidey sense, was annoying the back of his neck, but it was in his armpits, the backs of his knees, and – he swallowed hard – his groin, too. Peter allowed his hips to give the wall wide berth as he scaled it. When he reached the top, he paused and inhaled the New York air. He felt oddly hot.

 

The wail of another siren trained his focus. This one was speeding by about two blocks west, heading south. Suddenly, the pop of gunshots cracked the city's constant hum of traffic. There was the sound of screeching tires, and a scream.

 

“Oh shit.”

 

Faint lights across the eyepieces of his suit zeroed in on the location of the gunfire.  **Would you like directions to your intended destination?**

 

“No thanks, Karen, I got this.”

 

Forgetting the odd feeling in his body, Peter thrust his arm forward and pressed his middle two fingers to the mechanism on his palm. A string of silky white web fluid shot across the street and stuck to a less-than-sturdy-looking traffic light post. In one smooth leap, Peter had caught a firm grip of the silk in his hands, flung himself off the roof, and swung, like a pendulum, over cars and past apartment windows, until he reached the top of his arch, aimed, fired, and swung again. He'd had these powers for months, and still this was exhilarating.

 

Everything Peter did was calculated. He knew now (especially after a few times of face-planting spectacularly), how often he needed to place a web in order to avoid crashing. It was more of a risk in Queens, where many of the buildings were fairly low to the ground. He even accounted for the extra weight of his school books in his backpack, jostling around on his shoulders. The angle of the sun was low – the wintery, early sunsets starting – and he purposely avoided any path that would blind him. It took him less than fifteen seconds to find the police cars, which had stopped in the middle of the street. The officers were barricaded behind their doors, guns drawn, aiming at something. One of them looked up at Spider-Man with a flash of surprise, then disdain. He kept his gun poised but looked over his shoulder to shout, “Fuck off, man!” as Peter landed nimbly on the edge of an iron balcony. As the cop's attention was still on Peter, there was a deafening crack that rebounded off the buildings overlooking the crowded street. Someone screamed and started running.  _ Well, this is the place to be, _ Peter thought grimly, and slid his backpack off his shoulders to web it to the underside of the balcony above him.

 

Across the police-blocked intersection, there was a small bank with an ATM. Peter had seen Aunt May use it a handful of times; she insisted he wasn't quite old enough to handle a bank account and a debit card, so she usually gave him a twenty every few days, which he could stretch into an awful lot of food if he was smart about it. Now that same ATM was floating about a meter off the pavement, held in place by alien tech that Peter had hoped was going to be less of a problem after Liz's dad's arrest.  _ Obviously there are still some weapons floating around. _ Behind the floating ATM were about five or six people, dressed in black, one of them holding the flotation gun and the others carrying a variety of weapons. Even though Peter had great eyesight, it wasn't easy to tell which weapons were of the alien kind and which ones were just regular guns.

 

A second echoing crack answered his question partially. One of the criminals, a blond woman with a bandana tied around the front of her face like an outlaw, had fired her weapon at an upwards angle. It was clearly a plain, bullet-firing gun – Peter's gun-classification skills weren't great – and of course, the bullet was whizzing toward him. He easily dodged it, heard it ping off the iron balcony just above him (missing his backpack by two inches), and eventually hit the pavement below. However, he definitely had the bad guys' attention.

 

It was probably now or never.

 

As Peter stood to sling a web, he felt a sudden jolt in his stomach, like a kick in the gut. For a heart-stopping second, his head spun, and the street below him swam out of focus. His left hand gripped the wall of the building. Standing on a narrow piece of iron railing was probably on the list of top-ten worst places to lose your footing, especially when standing three floors above the ground. Legs shaking, he dropped back down to a crouching position, left hand sliding down the wall for guidance. The air inside his mask felt too close for comfort.

 

**Your heart rate is elevated and your breathing is erratic. You may wish to return to street level to avoid injury if you faint,** Peter hazily heard Karen say.

 

Shooting erupted on the street below. The sounds of the controlled explosions and the propelled bullets ricocheting off of cars and pavement pulled his body back into itself. Slowly, his proper vision returned and his head seemed all right. But he'd now lost his opportunity to solve the situation without collateral damage, and he wasn't even sure why. What the hell was going on with him today? Maybe he was getting sick?  _ Can I even GET sick? _

 

Another bullet was incoming fast. Peter jerked out of the way at the last second and shot a web diagonally across the intersection, grabbed it tight, and dove off the balcony. As he swung hard over the street, he twisted back, aimed another web for the bank building, and let go of the one he was swinging on. His trajectory took him right through the group of bad guys. When his feet made contact with the first, he felt the impact all the way up his spine. But now he was built for this sort of thing. Standing over the moaning mass of the dude he'd swung into, he rapid-fired webs at the five gun barrels pointing at him (missed one, webbed the guy's face instead, dodged the bullet, and kicked the gun out of the guy's hand and down the street). Peter could feel his heart pounding against the spider drone installed into the chest of his suit.   

 

The police on the other side of the intersection had stopped shooting as soon as Peter had swung into the path of their bullets. And while Peter was grateful that he didn't need to focus on more bullets whizzing by, it did mean that the bad guys were relatively free to gang up on him. He had somehow webbed the blonde lady's gun to her hand and she was preoccupied with undoing the webbing –  _ which isn't gonna happen, _ Peter smirked – but two burly guys had dropped their guns and one with a particularly impressive mustache peeking over his bandana made a lunge at him from the right. Peter jumped, pushed off the guy's head like he was some kind of fleshy parkour obstacle, scissored around the other guy's neck like he'd seen Black Widow do, and flipped backward, snapping the guy's face down to the pavement. By now, Disoriented Mustache Guy had turned around, and, scrambling to his feet, Peter webbed the guy's forearm, grabbed the end of the fiber and webbed it up to the traffic light overhead. The man was pulled upwards by his forearm and was left dangling, but mercifully out of the way.

 

A tingling in his neck made him duck as a massive arm swung over his head. Pavement Face had recovered, albeit with a massive swath of road rash. Peter swung his left leg back, took out the guy's ankles, and shot enough webbing to anchor him to the ground. Now it was just the blonde, a black guy holding –  _ come on! _ – a crowbar, and a brunette chick with the floating ATM. Unfortunately, the brunette was already halfway down the street, taking the ATM with her.

 

“You guys aren't making this easy,” Peter groaned through his mask, hurriedly surveying the situation. He slung a web at blonde lady, yanked her towards him, twisted around and webbed her gun and hand to a nearby Chevy. He felt the crowbar coming, leaned back, Matrix-style, out of the way, and grabbed the cold metal as it flung over him. The glimpse of the guy's face when Peter stopped his swing in mid-air was priceless. “A crowbar, dude? What, you draw the short stick?”

“Nah,” the guy mumbled under his bandana. His left hand flew to his hip. “I got a gun, too.” He let go of the crowbar and Peter, who was still in an absurd leaning position and had put his weight into the crowbar to stop its swing, lost his balance and fell to his back. The gun's progress from the man's holster was in slow motion to him; Peter simultaneously reached back, planted his hands by his face, swung his legs up and over his body, and flipped over his head into a standing position. In the back of his mind, he knew that the brunette with the ATM was getting away.  _ Maybe if the cops would get the lead out of their pants, _ he found himself thinking angrily as he grabbed the top of the gun, chopped the man's wrist with the edge of his hand, wrested the gun away and flung it into the air behind him along with a shot of web silk that firmly adhered it to the side of an apartment building.

 

The Guy Previously With Crowbar was furious now, but as he was unarmed, Peter didn't really care. He used both arms to shoot webs at the bank building and took a step back to sling shot himself closer to the brunette.

 

Another unholy jolt shot through his abdomen.

 

Peter couldn't help but grunt as he tried not to double over in pain. There was something very wrong with him. The street around him started blurring, and then, in his strange disorientation, he smelled a horribly strong scent, which only served to make his eyes water and his body throb with nausea. He didn't remember letting go of the web silk in his hands, but suddenly his back was on the pavement again. Peter couldn't get enough air through his mask.

 

The unarmed guy standing over him began laughing. Vaguely, Peter knew that there were other guns lying around, and that, though the man was unarmed at the moment, he could easily pick one up and make Peter an easy target. He blindly shot a few jets of web in the man's general direction, hoping to impede him in some way. Instead, a shiver ran down his spine as he felt breath directly in his left ear. “Did the itsy bitsy spider fall down the waterspout?” Then, a stunningly painful blow to Peter's chest – unmistakably crowbar in nature – forced a groan from his throat. He was blind, he couldn't hear properly, his whole body was throbbing, and he had to puke.

 

**Peter, you have experienced a cardiovascularly threatening blow,** Karen said quickly.  **Another of this nature could lead to fibrillation or cardiac arrest.** But there was nothing Peter could do. He could hear the whistle of the crowbar coming down again; he shielded his face reflexively, but the whistling was still coming....

 

The whistling didn't stop. Instead, it formed a weird melody, like that made up by someone who was bored. Suddenly, there was a loud thud and screech of metal: something heavy hitting a nearby car. “Pick on somebody your own, massive size,” a snide voice was saying, and Peter realized it had been the owner of this voice who had also been whistling. Rapid-fire grunts and even the sound of a sickening crack that sounded horribly like bone echoed around the abandoned cars. Recognizing his chance, Peter rolled unsteadily onto his front and pushed himself upward, still half-blind. A wave of nausea spilled up from his stomach and he fumbled his mask upward, rolling it over the bridge of his nose as he fought not to vomit. He braced his forearm against a car in front of him and leaned his forehead on it, breathing deeply. The whole street smelled like gunfire, sweat, and something obscenely heady that was making Peter's hair stand up.

 

“Ooh, is that somebody nearly entirely getting away I see?” the snide voice quipped again. “Can't have that.” Several rounds of gunfire went off in a row, piercing Peter's ears. Somewhere down the street, there was the faint crash of the ATM hitting the sidewalk.

 

Then, another shot terrifyingly close banged to Peter's right, and a searing pain cut through his right shoulder. He jerked away from the vehicle, blinking in the clarity brought by the pain. He had been bracing himself against the same Chevy that he'd webbed the blond to. She hadn't even needed to move in order to shoot him; now she was grinning as Peter reeled back and stumbled to the ground.  **You have taken a nine millimeter bullet in your right deltoid muscle,** Karen told him.  **Medical assistance is on its way.**

 

“Hey, Spidey, fancy seeing you in this fanfic. Jesus, you're not doing well,” the voice said. Peter looked up.

 

Standing over him was a man dressed in a somewhat disturbing, skin-tight red and black costume, with white eyes. It almost looked like Peter's own getup, except with a slightly different color scheme, two katanas strapped to his back, and a revolver in his hand. The man pointed the gun at the blond webbed to the Chevy. “No!” Peter choked, holding a hand out to stop the katana man.

 

“Geez, what is she, your girlfriend? She just shot you like you were a crime-fighting baby rabbit,” the man said, gesturing animatedly at the woman. “Yes, that  _ was _ a good analogy,” he suddenly added, seemingly to himself.

 

“Hand her to the police,” Peter argued, now bracing his shoulder. He could feel blood running down his right arm. The pain, however, was somewhat clearing his senses. In front of him, the man visibly rolled his eyes –  _ How does he do that with a mask on? _ – and moved the gun a fraction. He fired a round, but into the woman's right arm. She screamed, but the blood was minimal and the bullet had obviously missed any major arteries.

 

“There ya go, softy,” the katana man was saying. “An arm for an arm. Now let's get you out of here and let the good city of New York clean up this shit.”

 

Peter shook his head. “No way, man, I don't even know you. Besides, an ambulance is on its way.” As soon as he said it, he realized what a mistake it was for Karen to have called an ambulance. Unless it was driven by one of Mr. Stark's private employees, there was almost no way that the medical personnel weren't going to find out about his identity. Plus, if they tried to cut off his suit, Mr. Stark would probably kill Peter himself. If Aunt May didn't when she found out about the emergency room co-pay.

 

The man looked around. “It's not getting here in this gridlock. Allow me to get you at least to your next destination. I have a particularly good cabbie.” Peter was not about to go with this crazy, gun-wielding dude, but he did stand up shakily. It seemed like a step in the right direction to the mysterious man, because he held out his hand and said, “Deadpool's the name, taking out people who need to be gone and/or annoying people is the game.”

 

Peter shook the man's hand reservedly, still clutching his shoulder. “Hey, I'm Spider-Man,” he managed. “Karen, can we put the kabosh on that ambulance? I'm just gonna swing home.”

 

**That is ill-advised with the state of your shoulder, Peter. I can call Tony Stark instead.**

 

“Hey man, talking to voices in my head is my thing,” Deadpool pouted. Peter felt himself becoming quickly overwhelmed by the combination of the pain and the loud-mouthed mercenary in front of him. He turned away, catching a glimpse of the fallen ATM down the street. “Damn, but with that ass you can do anything you want, Spidey.”

 

Peter ignored him. “Don't call Mr. Stark, Karen. I'll just walk.”

 

**You need to have the bullet in your shoulder removed. Even with your healing ability, a lodged bullet could permanently disable some of the muscle function in your arm.**

 

The phone started ringing in his ear. It was all too much; the pain in his shoulder was building, the ache in his stomach had spread into his pelvis and throughout his limbs, he could feel a bruise spreading across his sore chest, and the sensory input from Deadpool, Karen, and the phone were making his head spin again. The moment when Tony Stark picked up the line was the same moment Peter felt his knees slam into the pavement.

 

“Hey, hey, Spidey, you cool?” Deadpool was saying. Mr. Stark was calling Peter's name.

 

Instead, the street flickered out of sight, and Peter closed his eyes, feeling the cool November air across the uncovered, lower half of his face.


	2. Breaking News

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again about any formatting problems! I write on both my laptop and my phone sometimes, so the formatting can get weird.

Peter awoke to a sharp stinging across his cheek. For a moment, he was stunned, staring through the eyepieces of his mask, watching Karen’s strange stats fly across his field of vision. Then, he focused beyond the display and saw a hand coming down toward his face. As a reflex, he reached up and caught it – with his bare hand.  He wasn’t in his suit.

“Get off the kid, Deadpool,” came a familiar voice from the corner of the room. “I did _not_ say you could slap him!”

“You didn't say I couldn't,” reasoned a voice above him. Peter blinked hard a few times to grasp the scene. The same mercenary, dressed in red and black, was standing over him. Blindingly bright lights were set into the ceiling above, almost making Deadpool into a silhouette. Behind the mercenary, Tony Stark was leaning against the wall, looking aggravated, hands in the pockets of his slacks.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter choked out, through his mask. He tried to push himself out of whatever he was lying on – a bed? – but was immediately held down by the highly irritating man in red and black. “Get off me, dude!”

“No can do, Spidey. Stark says you need your beauty rest.”

Peter realized that he was no longer wearing his suit, but was lying in a bed, wearing what looked like a hospital gown. Only his mask was still on, hiding his identity. The beeping of machines that swam into his senses made him realize that he was in a hospital. And his shoulder was stiffly bandaged, throbbing gently.

“Mr. Stark, did you take me to the E.R.? I can't afford the co-pay –” he started, but Tony Stark now walked away from the wall, coming towards Peter with his hands raised in a kind of surrendering position.

“This isn't the hospital. You're in a special wing of the old Avengers tower.  I have an arrangement with the people we sold to. So, we have private medical staff and the best surgeons. All the same, I made them leave the mask on.” Mr. Stark shot a look at the mercenary. “Mostly because Mr. Wilson here doesn't comprehend that not everyone gives less than a shit about their true identity. He just wears that mask because his face looks like...what was it that you said, Wade?”

“The love child of a shar-pei and an avocado, to keep it PG,” Deadpool shrugged, then more aggressively, “God, stop judging my analogies today!” Again, it seemed as though he was saying it to himself more than anyone else.

Peter reached up with his left hand – he couldn't move his right arm very well – and rolled up the bottom of the mask. Despite the distinctive antiseptic scent, he still relished in the fresh air. He couldn't see if the crowbar had left a massive bruise or not, but judging by the way his ribs still felt tender, he was guessing he wasn't going to heal that so quickly. An IV was in his right arm, tethering him to the pole and hanging liquid by the side of his bed.

Mr. Stark was now arguing with Deadpool about keeping “the voices” to a minimum. Since the mercenary was occupied, Peter gingerly sat up and cleared his throat. Both Mr. Stark's clean, well-groomed face and Deadpool's disconcerting, blood-stained mask turned toward him. “Before anyone else says anything else...what happened to me out there? Besides getting the shit kicked out of me, I mean.”

The red-clad merc raised his hands and stepped away. “Normally I love breaking news, but I admire you too much, Spidey. I'll let Iron Balls here clear things up.”

“...Thanks,” Mr. Stark said flatly. It seemed, to Peter, like the first time that the billionaire wasn't at the top of his game. And if whatever was wrong was so bad that Mr. Stark was thrown off, then it was disastrous.

“Look, Peter,” Mr. Stark started. “You know, I'm sure, that there are Alphas, Betas, and Omegas out there. They're the three types of 'second gender,' as they say.” The man waited, as if hoping Peter was going to say something, but Peter's mind had gone blank. Mr. Stark made an uncomfortable face and continued. “Well, when you joined the Avengers, you said you were a Beta, based on the fact that you didn't...er... _present_ another gender by the time you turned fifteen.”

Peter leaned back on his pillows. He didn't understand where Mr. Stark was going with this. It was true that every person presented their second gender by the time they turned fifteen. Peter had never seen a sign that he was an Alpha, nor one that he was an Omega, and therefore he was a Beta – just an average person. “I am a Beta, Mr. Stark. I didn't lie to you.”

“No, no,” the man said quickly, “I didn't think that you did lie, kid.” Mr. Stark walked over to the machines beeping next to Peter, looking suddenly interested in the monitors. “But, um....”

“—Your little episodes on the street were your presentation,” Deadpool broke in, “and the doctors have to figure out if you're a fucker or the fuckee.” He turned to his right shoulder. “ _What?_ I know I admire him, but I love breaking the news. Stop judging already!”

Peter sat up so hard that the IV nearly pulled out of his arm. The rack carrying the bag of liquid rolled forward and tottered dangerously before the suited mercenary reached out to steady it. Blood was pounding in Peter's ears, and despite the crowbar bruise screaming across his chest, he could barely feel anything. “What the fuck do you mean, my 'episodes' were my 'presentation'?” Peter spat. “I'm a fucking Beta!”

“Hey, hey, calm down or the doctor is going to kill me,” Mr. Stark demanded, grabbing Peter's shoulder and gingerly pushing him back down onto the bed. Peter knew that normally he could have easily overpowered the billionaire, but at the moment he wasn't sure he could stand, let alone overpower somebody. “You're – listen to me – you're...” he shot Deadpool a look of pure disgust, “...you're not just going to be the 'fucker' or 'fuckee,' all right?” Mr. Stark didn't move his hand from Peter's shoulder. “You're still Spider-Man, and you're still the kid behind the mask, okay? Your second gender does not define you.”

“Besides, Spidey, we all know you're going to be an Alpha,” Deadpool said, though he sounded disappointed. “I'm one, and you and I could be twinsies, what with our smart mouths and devilishly good sense of style.” The mercenary shrugged. “Plus I have shit luck, and it would be fitting that the hero with the finest ass in town would be essentially off-limits.”

It felt like the room was spinning. Peter's head was racing with the implications of what he was being told. If he was an Alpha or Omega, that would mean that his life was going to be entirely different. Sure, they had always been taught to accept their second gender when they were growing up, because they could be dealt any lot. But he couldn't deny that when he had hit fifteen without presenting, he had felt a distinct sense of relief. Alphas and Omegas were both boxed in by their own stereotypes, and not to mention strange limitations. Betas were just free to be who they were, and that was exactly the kind of freedom Peter needed as Spider-Man. He could barely balance two aspects of himself. There was no way that he wanted to think about a third.

“The doctor took a blood sample and she should know what...what the outcome is...in about an hour,” Mr. Stark was saying. Peter felt himself nod but he didn't look at either of the men in the room. Suddenly he felt very much out of his own skin.

“Kid,” Mr. Stark was saying, though it seemed now like he was struggling to figure out what to say, “I normally don't agree with this piece of shit over here –” he gestured to Deadpool, who took a miniature bow, “—but he's right, you're probably an Alpha. And, coming from two Alphas, it's really not that bad.”

“The erections are fantastic,” the mercenary said.

 

~~~

After another semi-heated argument between the two men, both Mr. Stark and Deadpool decided it was best to leave Peter to himself. Unfortunately, that only left Peter to his own thoughts.

He tried to figure out how he was going to tell Aunt May that he was not a Beta. Furthermore, how could he not be a Beta? Everyone presented by fifteen— _everyone—_ and the fact that he hadn't was alarming to say the least. Secondly, if his episode on the street had been his presentation, why didn't it have any of the normal characteristics of a presentation? He'd heard of Alphas noticing their first knot, or Omegas...well...doing _Omega things_ , and it didn't seem like his body punching itself in the gut was either of those.

“I'm royally screwed,” Peter whispered to himself, staring up at the white popcorn-style ceiling. The crowbar bruise was healing slowly, but to Peter now it could have been a slap from a toddler, for all he cared. In fact, he would have taken a normal, physical injury any day over this stupid second-puberty shit. Maybe he could go find that guy again and pay him to beat Peter with the crowbar until he couldn't feel anything anymore.

_No, wait, Deadpool probably killed him._

Peter was seriously considering just asking the mercenary to kill _him_ when there was a quiet knock on the door of the room. “Come in,” he choked, surprised at how quiet he sounded.

The calm specialist did not cut to the chase.  Instead, she introduced herself as Dr. Thompson, ignored Peter's (admittedly frantic) inquiries and checked his vitals.  Then she moved over to his IV, running her glance over the plastic tube for any problems. Peter couldn't help but stare, wondering what she was thinking.  Was it good news or bad news? Was there any such thing as good news in this situation?

Suddenly Dr. Thompson met his eyes and smiled politely.  “How would you feel about going for a little walk around the tower?”

Peter stared harder.  “Um...okay?” He gestured at the IV.  “What about old drippy here?”

The woman shrugged.  “Well, it IS on wheels.  Otherwise, to be quite honest with you,” she ducked closer to him, “you don't really need it all that much.  Your body is recovering at a superhuman pace, so really, the IV is overkill.” She straightened up, surveying him, but his confused expression was hidden under his still-on mask.  “Let's keep up the pretense, for Mr. Stark’s sake.”

In a minute or two they were out in the dimly lit hallway, Peter’s hand clenched around the cold metal of the IV stand, his face still concealed by his mask, rolled up so that it sat just under his nose to accommodate the saltine crackers that the specialist had produced out of nowhere.  Dr. Thompson’s short black hair was covering part of her face as she strolled next to him, her hands concealed in her pockets. She seemed to be wearing her own mask, in a way.

“What do you know about second genders, Spider-Man?” she asked quietly.  Peter didn’t answer immediately. The wheel of the IV stand was squeaking incessantly by his feet as they slowly made their way past innumerable closed doors.  Low lights were placed in the ceiling every eight feet or so. Peter could hear the electricity humming in the bulbs.

“I know that my first gender is that I’m a man,” he answered, barely audible.   _Or a boy,_ he couldn’t help but think.  “Second genders are mostly for reproductive purposes.”  Peter paused, waiting to see if Dr. Thompson would say anything, but she didn’t.  “So...all women can get pregnant, but so can Omega men. All men can...knock up...a woman,” he managed awkwardly, feeling suddenly like he was back in health class freshman year, “but only Alpha males can...knock up...Omega men.”

Dr. Thompson found some more saltine crackers and put another handful in Peter’s sweaty palm.  “Have a few more,” she said first, and then, “Do you know about Alpha women?” 

Peter already had half a saltine cracker in his dry mouth.  He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until she’d given him something to eat.  “Well, yeah,” he said through his chewing. “They usually take an Omega man or woman as a partner.  I know they can help an Omega through a heat, but not as well as an Alpha man.” 

“Because of an Alpha man’s knot.”  The last bit of cracker nearly got wedged in Peter’s throat as he shot Dr. Thompson an embarrassed look.  

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The long hallway was coming to an end and branched off to the right and left.  Peter hadn’t ever been in this section of the tower and he wasn’t sure where either hall led.  But when they reached the intersection, a shimmer of lights from the right caught Peter’s attention.  A line of perfectly clear windows stretched down that part of the hallway, displaying New York in all its glory like a panorama.

The IV squeaked its way down the hallway to the right.  Peter pressed his half-masked nose to the glass, fogging the view directly in front of him.  

New York was silver and gold, purple and yellow, blue and orange and red, and equal parts darkness, all at once.

“Nobody wants to be an Omega,” he breathed, his lips brushing the condensation on the cold glass.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because…”  He stopped, and closed his eyes, hearing the miniscule gears in his eyepieces likewise narrow the white slits on his mask.  “Because I am one.”

Somewhere, hundreds of feet below, a horn blared and someone cursed.  Peter opened his eyes a fraction, turned his face, and looked at Dr. Thompson’s city-illuminated face.  “I am one, aren’t I?”

The specialist nodded.

Peter turned his face back to the glass.  If only he could break it, and swing far, far away from this place.  Or simply fall to the pavement, the black solid grid holding the whole, shimmering scape together.  

How did he know he was an Omega?  Was it some feeling, in his body, or was his mind just...aware?  Somehow it didn’t seem like either one. After all, he’d logically concluded that he was a Beta after not presenting another way -- that was his mind.  And now, even though he was still recovering from the fight, the crowbar, and the gun wound, he could still feel the rippling super strength that had boiled up inside him after the spider bite, cording lean muscle around his limbs and solidifying his once-weak chest and torso -- that was his body….

“It’s because of my powers,” he said into the glass, to himself more than to Dr. Thompson.  “I was bit by the spider before I turned fifteen, before I had naturally presented as an Omega, and -- it threw it all off, didn’t it?”

Dr. Thompson was still holding the package of saltine crackers, and he could hear the crinkling plastic like firecrackers as she fidgeted with it.  “Mr. Stark and I believe that is the case.”

Peter swallowed.  “Does Mr. Stark know that I’m an Omega?”

“I haven’t shared that with him yet.  These were just his speculations while we were waiting for the test results.  However, knowing that you’re an Omega now makes more sense as to why your powers would conflict with your presentation.  It would seem that your powers are suppressing your Omega nature, because your powers themselves create more Alpha characteristics.”  Dr. Thompson held up her hand, ticking off fingers. “Strength, endurance, heightened senses, agility...things that we normally associate with Alphas more than Omegas.”

Peter found himself at an uncharacteristic loss for words.  Instead, he shivered, causing ripples in the IV bag. “It’s cold out here,” he managed.

Dr. Thompson gave him a sympathetic look.  “Well, you are in a pretty flimsy robe. Let’s get you back into the ward.  I’ll...call Mr. Stark, then.”

Peter barely noticed the IV stand squeaking back to the room.  He said nothing as Dr. Thompson redressed the wound in his shoulder, which was healing nicely.  The bruise across his chest was reaching the greenish-yellowish stage of an old injury.

He managed to convince Dr. Thompson that he wanted to lie back and nap.  She agreed and when Mr. Stark arrived, she moved their conversation to the hallway just outside the door.  Peter, however, could easily hear every word.

“He won’t go into regular heats; his powers are repressing his second gender.  Instead he’ll just lapse like this, randomly.”

“And what is he going to do if he’s out there?  If he’s fighting when it happens? He nearly got killed this time.”

Peter could hear Dr. Thompson exhale heavily.  “There aren’t a lot of options. It’s a complex issue.  Not only do his powers suppress his heats, but they also increase his physical strength and, to a degree, some Alpha qualities.  If we were to induce heats in an effort to control the lapses, they would be incredibly intense. Far worse than heats normally are for Omegas his age.”  She paused. “He would need an Alpha to get through them, and he’s legally too young for that.”

Mr. Stark’s voice was tense.  “So, what is your recommendation, Doctor?  He’s obviously not in any fit state like this.  He couldn’t fight like this.”

Dr. Thompson exhaled hard again.  Peter pressed his face against his pillow, trying not to succumb to the furious urge to rip it in half instead.

“I believe the best option is to give him suppressants; they’ll overpower his Omega hormones so that he won’t go into heat, and he won’t lapse like this.”

“So, what, he’ll basically be a Beta?”

“He could certainly pass for one.  But suppressing heats is incredibly hard on the body.  As soon as he’s legally able, we’ll need to switch his suppressants for heat regulators or even heat-inducers.  And he’ll need an Alpha. That’s the best way.”

Peter’s eyes were burning under the mask.  He could hear a hand on the doorknob; hastily he pulled his mask down over his trembling chin.

“You awake...Spider-Man?” Peter heard Mr. Stark say.  But part of him knew that if he were to acknowledge the man in front of him, it’d be all over.  He could only hold in so much emotion at one time.

“Let him sleep,” Dr. Thompson said from the doorway.  “Nothing will change between tonight and tomorrow.”

Peter heard Mr. Stark fold his arms.  “Yeah, except Aunt Hottie is going to be breathing down my neck, wondering what I got her nephew into.”

“None of this is your fault, Tony.”

“Yeah.  But it’s starting to feel like it is.”  For a moment, no one said anything. Then, Mr. Stark unfolded his arms and started for the door.  “You didn’t happen to see Deadpool pass by, did you?”

Dr. Thompson must have shook her head no, because Peter could hear Tony as he strode out into the hallway saying, “I better go find that durable sack of crap before he breaks anything expensive.  I don’t own this place anymore.”

After a beat, the door to the room closed, and Peter opened his eyes.

He was alone.  Perhaps the most alone he’d ever been in his life.


	3. That's What Is to Be an Omega

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once I started seeing people being pretty receptive to the first couple chapters, I had to go in and add some stuff in here. But I hope everybody enjoys it. Again, comments and critiques are welcome! (Also, I'm just realizing how short this chapter is, but the next section begins a big long scene, so I'll save it for Chapter 4.)

Despite all the trauma that had happened that November when he was fifteen, Peter managed to keep going.  Things were hectic on the streets, there were a few more close calls with Earth and the rest of the Universe hanging in the balance (nothing new, really), and Aunt May was still getting hit on constantly, although she’d probably never get over Uncle Ben.  But all the same, everything that mattered was still somehow balancing. Ned and MJ were still keeping him grounded with his normal life. Karen was still helping him navigate becoming a better Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. And his heat suppressants, which he got injected every two months at an upscale clinic in Manhattan, were keeping his second gender under wraps.  Everyone at school, except Ned and MJ, thought he was still a Beta.

True to Dr. Thompson’s word, though, Peter could tell that the suppressants were taking their toll on him.  As he passed the two-year anniversary of his first dose, the side effects were starting to become more obvious -- both to him and his friends.

It didn’t help that Ned had the impeccable ability of knowing which bathroom at school Peter was throwing up in.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”  His best friend’s voice echoed around the bathroom.  Peter hated echoes; it was sensory input from every angle.  Having his head in the toilet didn’t help.

He straightened up, ignoring the slight tremor in his hands as he gripped the somewhat sticky ( _ gross _ ) support bar next to the toilet in the handicap stall.  A sarcastic comment made its way up his throat. “No, Ned, I’m  _ supposed _ to throw up.  That’s how you avoid making babies.”

“Only a virgin would say that.”

A spark of anger, hot and uncalled for, flared up in Peter’s chest.  He punched the flush button sticking out of the wall and threw his backpack over his shoulder.  When he threw open the stall door with just a little bit of his extra strength, Ned flinched out of the way.

“Shut the fuck up, Ned.  I’m fucking smarter than you and you’re just as much a virgin as I am.”

Immediately as he said it, he regretted it.  Although Ned probably wouldn’t say anything, Peter saw his expression wilt slightly.  The anger in his chest cooled.

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry.  That was horrible.” Peter took a step toward his friend, hesitated, and instead turned toward the sink and flipped the cold water on.  He cupped the stream in his hands and splashed his face, feeling icy rivulets trickle down beneath the collar of his shirt. It was only when one drop made its way down to his chest that he realized he was coated in a thin sheen of sweat.

Ned shuffled out of the way of the paper towel dispenser as Peter tore several sheets out and padded his face dry.  “Yeah, it was. But I get it; it’s the suppressants.”

Peter didn’t say anything as they made their way to gym class.  It was upsetting to know that his friends were coming to expect his outbursts, even though the agitation and aggression that were starting to bleed into his life for a few days after each injection were not true to his normal character at all.  MJ had, of course, noticed first. She was perceptive like that. And she called him out on it, too. It had hurt when she’d said he was being a “real douchebag,” but it was better than being a dick to his friends without realizing it. Since she’d first said something four months ago, Peter had come to recognize the aggression that came with his suppressants.  It made sense, once he thought about it; the suppressants were beating down his Omega characteristics and cycles, so he should feel a bit like an Alpha when the suppressants were fresh. All the same, the anger and the way that he seemed to lose the fine edge of control between his normal strength and his super strength during these episodes made Peter feel uneasy.  And like a sack of shit when it happened around his friends.

Perhaps the worst part, though, was that the few days of being amped up after the injection were followed by a solid four or five days of a depressive crash that left him dragging himself out of bed.  

“Looking forward to getting off the suppressants soon?” Ned said, groping for conversation since Peter had gone silent.

Even though the suppressants were bad ( _ and getting worse _ , he couldn’t help but think), there weren’t enough side effects in the world to make Peter excited about stopping them.  Because when he was done with his suppressants, that left only one thing: heats.

“No,” Peter answered darkly.  Ned didn’t try to say anything more.

 

~~~~~

 

Days away from his eighteenth birthday, Peter got a text message from Tony Stark. “Meet at the old Avengers tower at 8 pm,” it said. And then, simply, “Important.”

Technically, Peter had promised Ned that they'd go online together and find matching Star Wars-themed prom accessories (MJ had approved, and her opinion was the only one that mattered since they were going as a threesome). But the last thing Peter wanted to do was blow off Tony Stark, especially with the excuse that he was shopping for a nerdy tie and pocket square. Instead, he called up Ned, gave him the truth, and found himself swinging from building to building toward Avengers Tower at about ten to eight.  It was still one of the easiest buildings to spot in the whole New York skyline, despite the big “A” that had used to stand for “Avengers” disappearing back when Tony sold the place. When Peter reached the smooth, high-tech durable glass on the outside of the tower, he very carefully scaled it until he reached the balcony. Then, enjoying the fresh air at the top of the world, Peter pulled off his mask and started for the door into the tower.

As his hand touched the glass, he suddenly heard voices. Though it was hard to tune into them over the roar of the wind at this height, Peter hurriedly pressed his ear to the glass and closed his eyes, just for good measure. It was two people, two men. Peter guessed that they were sitting just inside the room, possibly waiting for Peter himself to show up. They were probably sitting on the big leather couch that faced away from the window, although (Peter opened one eye) he couldn't see anybody. He closed his eye again and strained to hear. As he managed to finally lock his senses in on the conversation, he realized exactly who it was.

“Look, I'm not sure why you are having trouble understanding this.” Mr. Stark was irritated. The exasperation cut into his voice noticeably and left Peter feeling slightly on edge.

The second voice was just as easily identifiable, though it'd been longer since Peter had heard it. “I'm not understanding it because it's fucking sadistic.”

“There isn't really another option, Wade –”

“—Say what you want, Iron Ass, but there are very few situations in life in which there is only one way.”

There was an audible sigh, and then a pause. “You think I'm happy about this?” Mr. Stark said finally.

“I think if you were, I'd shove my katana so far up your butt you'd be metal inside AND out.” There was another long pause, and then Deadpool spoke again. “You can't induce his heat. It's sick.”

Peter swallowed hard. Even though the wind was howling all around him, and the sounds of the city were murdering his ears, Peter could have been standing alone in the quietest room on Earth, slowly descending into madness. They were talking about  _ him _ .

Stark spoke again, and Peter nearly cracked the glass in his attempt to listen closely against the window pane. “Look, Wade, I know you heard the doctor, three years ago. You heard her say that when he's eighteen, we need to induce his first real heat—”

“Why? Because now he's old enough to get fucked?” Wade spat. “Now it's legal for someone to shove their dick so far up his ass that he'll remember that feeling for the rest of his life, even if he doesn't want to?”

“Damnit, Wade, that's what it is to be an Omega—”

“You need to wait. You need to wait until he's ready.” Deadpool sounded pleading. “Just...at least another week, or something.”

Tony Stark sounded resigned. “You think he's going to be any less innocent if you give him an extra week?” There was silence. “Besides, we can't. There's a mission we've been waiting months to do, months for the right time to strike.... If the kid's in heat, he's a liability. But we need him.”

“So you need to get his heat out of the goddamn way so you can go off and save the world?”

For a moment, Peter wasn't sure that Mr. Stark was going to answer. But then, quietly, he heard the billionaire speak. “Yes.”

Deadpool didn't seem to be ready to let the conversation go. “So, who's going to be his Alpha then? Who are you getting to lead this poor eighteen-year-old kid, with powers, with what's probably going to be one of the worst fucking heats anybody has ever experienced, through this shit storm?”

Peter waited for Mr. Stark's answer, but he didn't hear it. Instead, he heard a growl so low that he thought an animal had made its way into the old Avengers tower.

“No. You are not pinning this on me. You are not going to make me watch him scream.” All humor was gone from the mercenary's voice. Peter's heart was pounding in his chest, his fingers white around the mask he was clutching.

“Who else are we going to get? Clint's got a wife. Natasha's a Beta; Bruce would just accidentally kill the kid; Vision's a no-go; Wanda and Steve are Omegas. Everyone else is out of town. And I'm not going to fuck him,” Tony added quickly. “The kid's like my son.”

“Stark.” Deadpool sounded pleading again. “You've seen my skin. He's going to be so torn between needing a cock and wanting to run away that he's going to burst into a million little pieces.”

“It has to be you, Wade.”

Peter felt shame creeping up his cheeks. He was a liability in heat. Even now, they had to essentially draw lots to figure out who could accompany him through the horrible days that he knew were coming. And, what was worse, it didn't seem like anybody wanted the responsibility.

“At least tell me the kid's fucking name,” Wade said quietly.

“I'll tell you,” Peter said.

They had been sitting on the couch, just sunk so low that Peter couldn't see their heads from the window. Now, Deadpool, all suited up, and Tony Stark leaped to their feet, both looking like deer in the headlights. “Jesus, how long have you been standing there?” Mr. Stark stammered, trying to fall back into the cool, playboy demeanor that he usually had.

“Long enough, haven't you Spidey?” Deadpool answered on Peter's behalf. The mercenary was staring at Peter intently, directly at his face. The mask hung at Peter's side. This was the first time he had shared his identity with Deadpool.

“My name is Peter.” He addressed the whites of the mercenary's eyes. Barely visible, perhaps even in Peter's imagination, Deadpool gave a very small twitch at the sound of Spider-Man's real name. Peter turned to Tony Stark. “I'm guessing that I've already heard the subject of the meeting.”

For once, Mr. Stark looked at a loss for words.

“Well,” Peter managed, running a hand through his hair to smooth it back before stretching his mask over his head, “you know when my birthday is; you know where I live. I guess I'll see you then.” And before anyone could say anything else, Peter turned, sprinted toward the open balcony, and threw himself off it, relishing in the cruel breathlessness that took him before he was finally compelled by instinct to spin a web.


	4. Not Any Less Innocent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here we go. Peter's heat starts in this chapter, and I have no idea how many more chapters it will last.  
> I know I've been posting these chapters in rapid succession, but I might slow down now since I only have three more chapters on retainer and I'll have to kick my actual writing up a notch.  
> One more thing: This is where I start jumping between Peter's POV and Deadpool's POV. I hope it's not too disorienting. The reason that I did this is because Peter is a great character to write, but it's really interesting to hear Deadpool's side of the story, especially when Peter is experiencing a bit of delirium and we need a grounding force to keep the story going. Sometimes their POV moments overlap very slightly, so sorry if that gets confusing.
> 
> Edit: All right, in the interest of making sure that this story reflects the degree of consent I'm wanting here, I've gone back and edited as much as possible. I think it still works for the story and doesn't detract from the characters. Hope this clears up any confusion! And thanks for the feedback.
> 
> If you're not familiar with the boxes (the voices in Wade's head), White box is kind of the voice of reason and Yellow box is more the crude side of Wade's personality. White box is in straight brackets [like this] and Yellow is in the curly ones {like this}. 
> 
> All in all, I had a blast writing this. It's a little filthy, but I hope you enjoy it.

His birthday was cold and rainy.  Aunt May called him in sick, citing the flu to spare his pride, while Peter watched, arms folded, from the kitchen. When May Parker hung up the phone, she looked at her nephew with some sadness in her eyes.

“I wish I could stay, Peter,” she whispered.

“I really don't want you to be here for this,” he answered honestly. “There's nothing you would be able to do to help me, anyway. It's just part of life now, I guess.”

His aunt looked like she was trying to find the right words to say, but instead she dug around in her purse for a moment and pulled out a bundle of keys. Gingerly she placed them on the table. “You know where the money for food is; you know where the emergency phone numbers are....” She tried to finish, but she shook her head. “I'm sorry.”

“May,” Peter said quietly, unfolding his arms and walking up to his aunt. “I'll be okay. I'm just growing up, right?” he tried to say lightly, even though it felt horrible on his tongue. “You watched me grow up, and here I am. Grown up.”

Aunt May was trembling now, looking at him through tears. “Jesus, Peter,” she managed, reaching up to wipe her eyes roughly. “This Alpha better take care of you or I'm going to kill them myself.”

Peter blinked. Then he wrapped his aunt in a hug. She reciprocated so tightly that it might have hurt, if it weren't so comforting.

Then, she was gone, out the door, for a luxury paid trip that Peter could only give her by being a liability to the Avengers.

He looked for a moment at the keys on the table, before turning off the light in the kitchen and heading into the bathroom for a shower.  Mr. Stark had texted Peter the details of when Peter could expect them to drop in, and he only had a few precious hours before the billionaire was going to show up with the mercenary.  Of course, he'd also received a couple of messages from Ned and MJ (the former had texted him a simple, “Happy birthday, good luck,” while the latter had sent an eggplant emoji). Peter knew, though, that they understood to steer clear of him for the next few days.

Peter stripped off his T-shirt and boxers and flipped the shower faucet on with his foot.  He kicked it once strategically to get it as hot as it would go before he gingerly stepped in and let the water run down his front.  If he was about to become a mess, he'd at least be a clean one.

 

~~~~

It was around eleven o'clock in the morning that there was a knock on the apartment door. Peter looked up from his biology book, which he had been distractedly trying to study for the last hour, and made his way to the front. The peephole revealed a distorted red and black mask with white eyes.

“Honey, I'm home!” Deadpool called cheerfully as Peter opened the door to the apartment. He spun his head this way and that, as if doing a hyper-fast scan of the apartment, then turned to Peter and ruffled his hair. “You ready for the fireworks, Petey?” Clearly the mercenary's demeanor had changed since the other day at the old Avengers tower. Peter stepped out of the way, allowing Deadpool and the rest of the ensemble to come in. There was a team of three medical techs, and Tony Stark himself, looking cool in a tidy suit and shades despite being indoors.

The inducing of the heat itself was apparently the easy part, as it only required two simple injections. Peter wasn't sure why it required three medical technicians, but he guessed it was just Mr. Stark's overkill. They sat Peter down at the table next to the keys Aunt May had left, readying the syringes. Peter fidgeted with his pajama pants and tried not to look as scared shitless as he was.  Part of him wished that Dr. Thompson was there instead. She was personable and he didn’t mind her knowing strange things about his body. _But_ , he supposed, _she never knew my real name.  And these techs probably don’t know I’m Spider-Man.  They think they’re just here to induce a regular heat.  Maybe they think I’m Mr. Stark’s charity case or something,_ to which Peter immediately tried to suppress the intruding thought that, yes, that’s indeed what he was.

From the corner of his eye, Peter saw Mr. Stark reach into his jacket and pull out a piece of paper folded in half.  He cleared his throat and removed his shades before taking a step forward. “Peter, before we…” he hesitated, “...get started, here...you’d make me feel a lot better if you looked at this.”

It turned out that the piece of paper was a consent form.  Peter stared at the tidy printing and the official letterhead of Stark Industries.  Despite his anxiety, his brain immediately began running the words on the page through his mind.   _This document serves to prove that the Omega in question [Peter Benjamin Parker] willingly and in a full state of mind consents to the induction of a cyclical ‘heat’ and to the resulting activities that shall take place due to the induction of said heat._  It went on to get into specifics, including that one Wade Winston Wilson had been assigned as his Alpha and that Peter was willing to have sex with him specifically.  Peter’s hand shook as Mr. Stark threw a pen his way.

“This isn’t about legal repercussions or any of that bullshit,” the billionaire said quickly.  “It’s actually for my own peace of mind more than anything.” He folded his sunglasses and tucked them into his breast pocket.  “I’ve got a bit of a guilt complex, so really, you’re doing me a favor.”

“You want me to say that I’m willing to do this?”

“No.  I want you to be honest.”

Peter swallowed and looked down at the document.  Some part of him -- albeit a very small part -- had been hopeful that everything could happen organically, like as if Wade had wined and dined him first.  The document, the lab coats, and the eyes on him destroyed that illusion instantly. All the same, Peter took a slow breath in and out, rereading the words on the page.

Mr. Stark pulled out the chair opposite and sat down at Peter’s dining room table.

“Peter, look at me.  Forget whatever you heard the other day at the tower.  I’m trying to act in your best interest, but this is all up to you.  If you say no, we will turn around and walk out of here and figure out some other option.”

It was all a bit much.  Peter inhaled again, then closed his eyes.  Sure, this wasn’t how he had imaged his first time, but since when did his life go exactly to plan?  He couldn’t keep putting off his first heat, not when he knew it was three years overdue. Not when his suppressants caused him to lash out.  Not when this was the smartest course of action.

Peter clicked the pen and scrawled out his name along the bottom of the paper with the date -- his birthdate.  He tried to pull the best stoic face he could as he handed the document back to Tony Stark.

“I’m doing this, Mr. Stark.”

The billionaire took the paper and rolled it up, and although his face was still mixed with uncertainty and guilt, Peter could see the lines of relief there, too.  “All right. Doctor, proceed with the fancy explanation, if you will.”

“It will be about five to ten minutes before the drug begins to have an effect, Mr. Parker,” the head technician said conversationally. “Then you'll go into an induced heat. It could last anywhere from two to four days. Usually the middle of the heat is the most intense.”

“Got it,” Peter said automatically. Mr. Stark was standing coolly next to the ancient dish cabinet in the corner of the room. The medical techs were sitting and standing around Peter, making him feel like there was a lot of fuss being had over him.  And Deadpool had already disappeared somewhere into his apartment.

“Are you ready, Mr. Parker?” the head tech asked. Peter brought his attention back to the man and realized that he already had a needle in his hand, ready to go.

Peter swallowed. “Yeah.”

The needle itself was fine. Just a prick, and Peter had experienced worse. The second was the same, a little pinch and done. But as the technicians began to stand up and pack up their equipment, Peter could feel a horrible, cold, liquid sensation oozing throughout his body, starting at the injection site. It made him shiver and feel like he wanted to throw up.

As the medical technicians wished Peter a good day and wheeled their equipment back out into the hallway, Tony came over to him. The man looked like he didn't quite know what to do, and settled for a clap on the shoulder, which Peter was stoic against. “Good luck, kid. Wade looks like a lot, but he's not as bad as you might think.”

Peter swallowed at looked up at the man who had become his father figure – who had once seemed as good as a father. He didn't say anything.

And Mr. Stark left.

Now it was just Peter and Deadpool, who was somewhere in his apartment.

“Wade?”

Peter stood up and slowly walked through the small Queens accommodations. He had a good idea of where the merc had probably set up camp, but it was still the last place he looked. In his bed, Deadpool was already spread out, his mask rolled up, with a taco in his hand and his dirty boots on the ladder leading up to the second bunk. Great.

“Hey Petey, ready to party?” Wade said, his mouth full of taco.

Peter strode over to the red-clad man and kicked him squarely in the ribcage. Deadpool sat up, nearly choking on taco, and gestured questioningly with his big hands. “Damn, you're a fiery Omega.”

The icy feeling had dissipated in Peter's body, and now he felt nothing but frustration. “All right, Deadpool. We're going to get one thing straight here. I don't fucking want this. I don't want _any_ of this,” he said mercilessly, “and you're going to take this seriously because if not, I will beat the absolute shit out of you when I'm back to normal.”

Deadpool shrugged and shoved the rest of the taco into his mouth. “All right, Spidey. You want me to leave?”

“What?”

“I’m asking you if you want me to leave.  I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Peter gaped at him.  “I already signed the consent form.”

Deadpool scoffed.  “Whatever, that’s Iron Ass’s consent form.  It doesn’t mean jackshit to me.” The mercenary looked directly at Peter’s face.  “Are you okay with doing this? I know the situation sucks, I know it does. But even if you don’t want _that_ ...do you want _this_?”

He couldn’t help but stare at the mercenary.  He hadn’t quite expected him to be so concerned.  All the same, Peter appreciated it. “I’m doing this,” he repeated.

The man on the bed suddenly clapped his hands together.  “All right! Well, rest assured I’m not going to nipple-clamp you to the ceiling or anything.  I’m sure you have more effective ways to suspend yourself, anyway.” He gestured at Peter animatedly.  “You need a safeword or something?”

Peter swallowed and looked away. “We both know I'm not going to be in the mind to use it.”

“All the same.” The joking had left Wade's voice again.

“Avengers,” he said slowly. “My safeword is Avengers.”

Once more Deadpool pulled off a visible eye-roll from behind the thick fabric of the mask. “Fine.” The mercenary leaned back and kicked off his dirty boots. “Use the most mood-breaking safeword there is, that's fine by me. I don't know about you, Spidey, but I'm hoping to enjoy this at least a _little_ bit.”

Peter scoffed. “Right. You definitely sounded into it when you were arguing about it with Mr. Stark.”

Deadpool froze. “I've...come to terms with it,” he said slowly, “and I figure that you gotta take stuff like this in stride.” His head jerked to the right. “Damn it, yes, I've come to terms with it,” he addressed one of the voices.

Peter's mouth felt somewhat dry. He blinked, unsure if it was just plain anxiety or the beginning of his heat. He rested his palm on the ladder to the top bunk, trying to pass it off as a cool lean but really gripping it for surety. “I'm not any less innocent than I was,” Peter managed, looking out the window. “Just remember that when I'm....” He broke off, the hand on the ladder beginning to tremble.

“Spidey? Petey?” Deadpool ducked out from under the bunk and put his hand on Peter's shoulder. But Peter couldn't speak.

 

___ DEADPOOL

 

When they'd rolled up to Peter's sad, small apartment, Wade had felt just about every fiber of his being going through fiery anticipation. He had thought once, twice, maybe two thousand times about fucking Spider-Man, about burying himself deep in that pert ass until the superhero slung web from his fifth appendage. But now that it was so close, so real, it was probably one of the most fucking terrifying things that Wade had ever agreed to do. He'd only seen the kid's face for the first time a few days before, and dear God was he gorgeous. Brown hair stuck up like he'd just been fucked, lips that could probably give great head, and eyes that Deadpool could melt into. But, now that Wade was going to be his Alpha for his heat, it was no longer about the pleasure of a good fuck. Now it was ultimately about biology, and the kid's safety and well-being. And Deadpool only knew the poor boy's first name.

That was, until they came into his apartment, Deadpool beelined for the bed, and started chowing down nervously on tacos he'd stuffed in his infinite pockets. He could hear from the other room the doctors calling the kid “Mr. Parker,” which sounded like they were addressing a forty-year-old man getting his millionth driver's license, rather than the skinny kid who looked just as much like he should be playing a good round of Mario Kart as saving the world. Or getting fucked up the ass.

When Peter came into the bedroom, Wade could hear his heart in his throat. And that kick to the ribs hurt so good.

[ _Holy fuck, Spidey's got a good leg._ ]

{ _Now we just have to see if he's got a good dick._ }

Wade ignored the boxes and sat up, and watched Peter look at him with something that must have been close to loathing. And Wade didn't blame him either; the poor kid was just waiting for his heat to kick in. Truthfully, Wade was just as nervous. He hadn't knotted in ages and he hadn't helped an Omega through a heat in just as long. Despite being out of practice, he noticed when the kid swallowed harder than normal and when he put his hand on the ladder step. It was coming.

“I'm not any less innocent than I was,” Spidey was saying, not looking at Wade in the eye. Wade knew it, too, knew by the way the kid's pajamas were hanging around his hips, knew by the way the kid's skin was unmarked, knew by the way his eyes started to go wide and his hand started trembling. “Just remember that when I'm...”

Peter stopped, his mouth suddenly slack.

[ _Ah Christ, fuck, fuck, fuck, this is happening._ ]

{ _Oh yes, this is happening! We're going to get to fuck Spidey._ }

[ _Have some goddamn decency, the kid is an Omega._ ]

“Shut the fuck up,” Wade said abruptly. His hand was on Peter, who was now leaning on the bunk ladder in earnest. His other hand was pressed over his abdomen, like he was going to throw up.

“Peter,” Wade tried the kid's real, whole name, hoping to draw him back to reality. It seemed to work, because instead of the somewhat-frightening, slack-jawed look the kid had been sporting, he suddenly seemed to realize where he was, screwed up his face in pain, and folded backward, sliding down to the floor.

“Dear Jesus,” Peter choked, his left hand still holding his stomach. “Ah— _God—_ this fucking hurts—”

Wade bent down to help the kid, but was suddenly hit by a scent that ran an electric shock from his nose all throughout his body. It was delicate, but something incredible. It was needy, spicy, and distinctly Spidey.

[ _Oh Jesus fucking Christ. His pheromones are MADE for us,_ ] White was crooning.

{ _All right, we need to fold this kid over and fuck him five ways from Friday,_ } Yellow moaned.

By the way Peter's pupils had dilated, Wade was guessing that his Alpha scent hadn't gone unnoticed by Peter's suddenly sensitive nose, either. A flush was starting to rise in his cheeks.

“Are you okay, Petey?” Wade tried tentatively.

Peter's right hand flew to his nose. “Holy shit,” he said finally, “I—I have strong senses, but I've never smelled anything like—” He was still trembling, his left hand still pressed into his stomach, but now Deadpool followed the line of the kid's body, to where the action was going to be happening shortly. No visible hard-on yet. Maybe Spidey was just that good, or maybe his heat wasn't quite in full swing.

[ _Holy hell though, Spidey's in pain._ ] It wasn't an exaggeration from White. Peter's face was paler than Wade had ever seen a human look. The kid had moved his hand from his nose, and had his eyes closed tight while he curled in on himself. His groans of pain were getting louder and more constant.

“Okay, Petey, let's get you somewhere a little more comfortable,” Wade managed weakly, trying to sound as nonchalant as he could. In one swoop, he'd bent down and scooped up the hero in his arms, as if he weighed nothing. Even in the few seconds it took Wade to deposit Peter onto the lower bunk bed, he got a noseful of the kid's Omega pheromones, pulsing more strongly through the air every moment. And Wade was sure that Peter had gotten a major whiff of him, too. At the moment, however, Peter seemed too distracted by the pain to think of anything else. The kid stretched out partially on his bed, left hand still clutching his abdomen as if an alien was going to burst out of it like a bad nineties movie. And, _Christ_ , the kid reached up and gripped the post of his bed so hard that Wade could almost hear the wood crack under Spidey's super strength.

“Wade,” Petey was practically yelling now. His face was pinched in agony, his legs were kicking as if he needed an anchor to keep him from falling into an alternate reality. “Ah, fuck, WADE!”

At a loss, Deadpool found himself kneeling next to the bed with the blue, worn-out comforter and the yelling teenage superhero who looked far too innocent to be dealing with this shit. Instinctively, Wade pressed his gloved hand over Peter's left one, and cupped the back of the kid's head with his other hand. “Hey, baby boy, this will be over soon. This is just your organs having a little fun,” Wade tried saying, but he was nearly being drowned out by the yells.

[ _Holy mother of shitsicles, his organs really ARE moving._ ]

Wade blinked and kept holding Peter, kept pressing his hand against the kid's jumping abs, which felt _sensational_ , to be truthful, but he agreed with White: somewhere, under Petey's hard muscles, he could feel horrifying movement, subtle and yet there. It really was Peter's organs moving, making space to accommodate his reproductive anatomy, preparing his little Omega body to conceive. Normally it happened over the course of a few days before a heat, giving an Omega some cramps but nothing serious. For the wall-crawler, though, it was all twisting and pulling and moving inside him, at once. And Wade was holding him through his convulsions, listening to the hero scream his name again and again, as though the mercenary could save him from himself.

 

____ PETER

 

The pain was a hundred times worse than he remembered. He'd thought back to that fight on the street, with the floating ATM and the guy with the crowbar, on countless occasions. And as he'd been preparing for his first real heat, he'd thought about it even more, trying to recall the lancing pain through his body, and the way that it had made him cloud over and feel utterly helpless. It had seemed bad enough then, and as Peter had been standing by Deadpool, feeling the first stabs of pain start in his abdomen, he'd thought that he could handle it. Unfortunately, his memories were of merely hints to what the sudden onslaught of heat was. In moments, it had him on the floor, barely able to think straight. And then the Alpha pheromones had hit him, and it had thrown his body into high gear, _knowing_ there was an Alpha nearby, _knowing_ that he could get pregnant – Peter had never felt something so excruciating in his entire life. Even on the bed, even with Wade's hand pressed against him, even with every muscle in his body on fire, he couldn't ground himself enough through the sheer agony of it. All he could do to remember where he was or who he was with was to call out for the only other person in the room until his throat was raw. And even though his nose was full of Deadpool's heady, intoxicating pheromones, sex was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

Then the pain subsided. Peter couldn't have guessed if it lasted a minute or an hour; he could only tell that everything ached and that he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. In the pain's sudden absence, he felt the aftershocks send a wave of nausea up his body. Without giving warning, Peter convulsed again, turned over and vomited – directly into a trashcan. Somehow, the mercenary had seen Peter's weak stomach coming.

“That's it, Petey. Let it out, baby boy,” Deadpool was saying soothingly. Peter heaved again, bringing up food he didn't even remember eating. A hand was brushing Peter's sweaty bangs out of his face, another was rubbing his back as nausea wracked him. He barely recognized this Deadpool, this Wade – it seemed too loverly for the merc who was always un-aliving people. But it was in an Alpha's nature to care for his Omega.

Peter emptied his stomach until he was dry-heaving. Then he limply rolled onto his back, breathing hard. “I. Do not. Like. Heats.”

Deadpool had stood to deposit the trash can on the other side of the room, probably hoping to keep the regrettable vomit smell as far away as possible. “Don't think of it as a regular heat, Spidey,” he said through the fabric of his mask. “Think of it as a super heat. You just got hit with some biological shit like the Hulk dropping a radioactive deuce and hurling it at people on the street.” He paused. “Sorry to all those readers out there; that was the author's poor attempt at Deadpool humor.”

Peter didn't answer. Now that the pain was over, and the nausea had finished up, he couldn't distract himself or escape from the way his body suddenly felt. Or from the incredible scent that Deadpool was slowly spreading throughout the room. It was dark, churning, and – Peter tried not to think about it – slightly aroused. _God_ , he could _smell_ Deadpool's arousal. The thought went straight to his groin.

“Uh, Wade,” Peter said quickly, surprised at how hoarse and quiet his voice was.

“What's up, Spidey?” Wade strutted back over to Peter, and some of his swagger was clearly back after Peter was no longer yelling in pain. The mercenary's voice sounded suddenly disappointed as he looked at Peter's pants. “Not you, yet, unfortunately.”

Peter's hand reflexively flew down to his crotch, and while he could feel his own arousal starting, it was mercifully not noticeable yet. “Dude,” Peter tried, hoping to sound as much like himself as possible, “I just lost about every piece of food I've ever eaten in my life. You know my metabolism is off the charts. You gotta go buy some food or something or I'm going to pass out.”

Deadpool seemed to sag before addressing his left shoulder. “Yes, this IS a heat, you gotta have some patience, Yellow!” Wade's white mask eyes turned back to Peter, who was still lying on his back, silently willing the mercenary to walk away before things down south got bigger. “All right, Petey, I'll walk over to that Chinese place across the street. After we eat, though, I'm definitely going to want some action. We've gone through the scary shit, now we need to get to the good part.” He pulled a cell phone out of one of his pouches and headed to the other room, thankfully closing the door behind him.

“There's food money under the cookie jar!” Peter called for good measure, but somehow he figured Deadpool was going to pay for it himself. Alphas usually did.

Now that Wade was out of the room and soon to be out of the apartment, Peter tried to breathe deeply, hoping that the scent of pheromones would have faded at least slightly. But it seemed that Wade really _was_ ready for action; the heady scent had permeated the room and probably the whole apartment. Even covering his nose with his T-shirt did nothing; his head was starting to spin slightly, almost euphorically. An undeniable heat was now pooling in his groin, and a slow ache was starting in his limbs. Carefully Peter lowered his head back to the mattress, closing his eyes and willing himself not to get drunk on the scent. It wasn't working. In the other room, the door to the apartment closed with a soft _thud._

At the same time, Peter could feel a dull throb inside him, somewhere deep and seemingly untouchable. A strange emptiness was growing, a pulling feeling that he'd never experienced before. He measured his breaths, trying to master himself, but—

He was getting hard.

And then, unbidden, starting from the deep emptiness and working its way out, Peter felt a horrible dampness, the sensation of a thick fluid, slowly oozing its way from him. He knew this was part of it, he knew of the “slick,” as others called it—but the knowledge did nothing to prepare him for the feeling of it weeping out of him, horrifying and tantalizing all at the same time.

Peter hastily leaned over and grabbed several tissues from the box on his bedside table. It seemed crude and unceremonious, but he stuffed a handful down the back of his pants, hoping it would suffice. Then, he purposely rolled onto his side, facing away from the door, hiding the now full-size erection he was maintaining. All the while the empty feeling was pulsing inside him, becoming more and more demanding in its presence. Every breath of Alpha air that he pulled in seemed to only make it worse. Peter pressed a hand to his abdomen again, almost hoping he could push the emptiness away. It only throbbed in response, sending a wave of heat to his erection. Moisture continued to seep from his entrance, and now, he could feel it at the tip of his cock, too. Almost unconsciously, he moved his hand to the front of his pants and applied pressure to his hard length. And then, also unwanted, uninvited, and yet uncurling from him like an animal that had always lived inside him, waiting...a burning, punishing need.

“Oh fuck,” Peter breathed into his comforter. This was a heat, starting in earnest. He remembered his classmates occasionally talking about Omegas in heat; his Omega classmates had probably had their first heats when they were fifteen or even younger. And, while the first few years of heats were usually easily suppressed and not very strong besides, he knew that many of the Alphas in his school had already knotted some of the Omegas. He remembered one particularly unpleasant bus ride to a decathlon competition, during which Flash had recounted fucking an Omega girl for almost three days straight. He had laughed about how she'd been all over him, about how she could barely let him out of her sight.  Ned and MJ -- both Betas, but looking out for Peter -- had told Flash off for being an insufferable asshole. But their attempt to protect him hadn’t wiped Flash’s words from his memory.

Peter grimaced. It was all right for now. He was still in his right mind, and he dearly hoped that he wouldn't lose his head entirely. But as he breathed hard into his comforter, he couldn't help but squirm slightly. He'd been jacking off since he was old enough to be interested in sex; certainly since he was thirteen or fourteen. Those times he'd always been chasing the pleasure, though. This...he had never felt anything like this. He felt, now, like he had no choice.

He rolled his hips, relishing in the feeling of his erection against the mattress. Peter had now rolled almost onto his stomach, with his left arm braced under him and his right still hovering by his pelvis, his fingertips currently pressed into the wall, his spider grip keeping him anchored there. His hips rolled again, seemingly of their own accord. “ _Fuck_ ,” Peter whispered, eyes closed tight. They rolled again, pleasure uncoiling from his cock and more slick pooling in him. The emptiness in his body was growing, though, unsatisfied by this adolescent bed-grinding. His fingertips continued to grip the wall, and now his left fist was curling in his comforter. Peter's breaths were coming harder, and he could feel his tenuous control slipping. He keened in earnest into the mattress; dampness was now leaking from his front and back in little pulses. “FUCK,” he panted, and the emptiness inside him throbbed tangibly.

Although the temperature in the apartment hadn't changed, Peter was suddenly uncomfortably hot. He let himself pant for a few seconds before sitting partially upright, grabbing the shirt roughly from his back and pulling it off over his head. It was almost surprising to find it so damp. As Peter chucked the shirt away and turned back to his stomach, his abdominal muscles twitching impatiently, he found it almost unbearable to have so much skin contact with the comforter. It felt rough and irritating; his pants were starting to feel the same.

A noise from the apartment downstairs brought him back for a moment. He realized that he wasn't quite sure how long it had been since Deadpool had left to get something to eat. It was possible that the mercenary could come back any minute, really – after all, how likely was the Chinese place to make a man dressed in skin-tight spandex with katanas on his back wait for his food?

Attempting to regain control, Peter opened his eyes and looked around. He was always hyper-aware, thanks to his superpowers, but now it felt like every nerve ending in his body was lit up. Even slowing his breathing wasn't easy. He carefully shifted into a sitting position at the edge of his bed. A sickening squelch from the tissues down the back of his pants had him reaching for new ones to trade out.

Finally Peter looked down at himself. His whole body was flushed, pinkish patches trailing up his arms and torso like kisses. And, between his shaking legs, his cock was still rock-hard. Peter closed his eyes, pressed a hand to his groin, and exhaled slowly. Christ, even his dick was bigger in heat.

The presence of his hand wasn't helping anything, and Peter felt new slick dampen the tissues he'd just shoved down his pants. As he fought to stay in his right mind while still feeling the drunkenness of Deadpool's scent in his nose, he thought to the mercenary, probably carrying Chinese food across the street right now.

Oh God, he wanted Deadpool to fuck him.

Peter opened his eyes in shock. Had he really just thought that? Had he really just felt, even for an instant, that he wanted to feel Wade know him in the most intimate way?

 _Yes,_ he had thought it, and he was still thinking it now.

The conversation from Avengers tower swam back into his mind. Deadpool and Mr. Stark had been arguing, and at that moment, Deadpool hadn't seemed so keen on getting to know the kid behind the Spider-Man mask. He hadn't seemed like it was all that interesting to be responsible for Peter at the time. _And,_ Peter thought miserably, _he's probably not really that interested right now. He's just pretending because he feels bad for me._

Even though Deadpool had been commenting on Peter's ass for the last three years, it still seemed less than genuine when cast in the light of the conversation the other evening.

And now, for the first time, Peter wanted it to be genuine. Or, at least his body did.

Another pulse of slick oozed out of him. Peter closed his eyes again, trying to rein in the sensations that refused to be ignored in his body. The emptiness inside him was starting to overwhelm him; he groaned, more loudly than he intended to. He needed to take care of the erection that was now starting to ache under his palm.

 _Let Wade come in your ass and you'll explode._ The filthy thought crossed his mind, nearly as foreign and autonomous as Wade's voices. All the same, his cock jumped under his hand, and he could feel dampness seeping through the front of his pajama pants. “Oh dear God,” he murmured to himself, slowly losing his grip, “Oh please, let me come.” He had sunk to his knees on the floor beside his bed, hardly aware of where he was.

Peter had spent years striking a balance between his body and his mind, figuring out where his instincts stopped and his intelligent brain started. It was all for nothing. The emptiness inside him was starting to black out his vision at the sides; Wade's scent was clouding his mind with nothing but a hot blanket of need.

He didn't even realize that his hand was inside his pants until he felt his own skin against his shaft. There was nothing for it; he couldn't wait. Mercilessly he began to strip his own cock, spreading the silky precum down from the tip with each stroke. He could feel his jaw slacken, feel the pulsing of pleasure in his balls, the tightness in all of his limbs. Slick was oozing out of him uncontrollably now, and he could vaguely, in the back of his mind, feel a dribble run down the back of his thigh.

A deep groan welled up in his chest, and when it burst from him it was more animal than man—a sound of deep, excruciating need, and release dancing just in front of him, out of his reach.

Peter was brutal, setting a mind-blowing pace for himself, desperate to finish and find some escape from the emptiness inside. It was driving him mad. He needed something—anything—to fill him. In desperation, he leaned back on his heel, trying to find some stimulation for his entrance. He didn't even bother to remove the tissues first, and instead ground against his opening until slick had all but soaked through the paper and his pants.

From somewhere in the apartment, there was a sound, but Peter was too far gone to even hear it. His senses were all overwhelmed. Then, just as Peter nearly sobbed in desperation, a fresh wave of Alpha scent hit him like a wall. Coiled heat in his groin suddenly burst, sending pulse after pulse of stickiness onto Peter's torso. Peter's body shook, his left hand fisted in the comforter, as his cock spilled everything it had onto his chest.

“Christ.”

Peter's eyes flew open. Standing in the doorway, with a bag full of food, was the merc with a mouth.


	5. Then Don't Think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a relatively short chapter, but more is coming pronto. I hope you all still enjoy this part. Like I said in the notes for Chapter 4, the heat lasts several chapters.
> 
> I absolutely LOVE reading the comments. They make me so happy to know that people like reading what I've written. I also am not opposed to hearing what people want to happen in the story, so leave your comments, suggestions, critiques...I love it.

___DEADPOOL

 

Walking across the street, away from the spicy, intoxicating smell of Spider-Man, was the best way to clear his head, Wade figured. Maybe the kid had sent him away for a reason; maybe he actually knew a thing or two about pheromones and wanted Deadpool to get his head on straight. After all, he had been pretty aggressive-sounding as he closed the door to Spidey's room, telling him that he wanted to get to the “good part” after they ate. It was pretty not-cool of him to be so demanding of the kid; he had just gotten his organs rearranged.

In fact, Wade took the good ten minutes that he was standing in the lobby of the Chinese carry-out place (drawing strange looks) to reassert to himself why he was there in the first place.

[ _ We are taking care of Spidey. We are just there to make sure he's happy, and that's all. _ ]

“You're right,” Wade said out loud, attracting more uncomfortable gazes, “We just need to be there for Spidey.”

{ _ Psht. We need to plow that sweet, juicy ass, is what we need to do. _ }

Deadpool considered this, too. Yellow had a point.

{ _ Besides, haven't we been coveting Spidey since he swung into our lives three years ago? _ }

White box balked in Deadpool's head. [ _ Yeah, but he was a child. That was our mistake. We never did anything about it. _ ]

{ _ Speak for yourselves. I would have banged him so hard he'd forget his real name. _ }

Deadpool shook his head. “It's all about Spidey today. If he wants us, he can have us.”

[ _ Let's remember his safeword though, just in case. _ ]

“Ugh, do we have to?” White box was adamant. “Fine. Fucking 'Avengers' for God's sake.”

The food came pretty fast—Deadpool always got his food fast—and as he headed back toward Peter's horrible affordable housing he smelled something gorgeous on the air that didn't smell anything like the Chinese food in his hand.

It was spicy and clean. Innocent.

[ _ Holy fuck we can smell Spidey from out here! _ ]

{ _ Hang on, there's something different about it. _ }

Deadpool lifted the bottom of his mask slightly to catch a fresh whiff of the Queens air. Sure enough, it was Peter's scent. But it had changed very slightly. It had been needy before, but now it was...desperate.

“Ah, hell, we shouldn't have left him alone!” Deadpool swore, striding across traffic to get to the apartment faster. Wade wiped all indication in his mind that the decision to leave Peter alone was a smart one. The kid had asked him to grab some grub, sure, but he could have ordered some fucking pizza. Instead he left an Omega in his first-ever, super-strong heat, on his own.

Not only was it bad for Peter's well-being, but it was dangerous to the people living around the kid, too. The scent of an Omega in full-blown heat, without the mix of Alpha presence, was asking for trouble. People steered clear of an Alpha/Omega pheromone cocktail when it was wafting out of an apartment. But a strong Omega scent alone was going to attract some Alphas. It wasn't their fault, of course—the pheromones of an Omega in heat was bound to send any Alpha into a rut. Hell, Wade was trying to breathe through his mouth just so that he could focus enough to get back up to the apartment.

By the time Wade opened the door to Spidey's pad, he was already nearly hard as a rock. Peter's Omega pheromones were everywhere, on everything. Deadpool didn't even think to put down the food as he automatically propelled himself straight to Peter's room.

What he saw, though, stopped him in his tracks.

Spidey was shirtless. Kneeling on the floor. He had his hand in his pants, which were doing a fantastically horrible job of hiding Spidey's cock. And just moments after Deadpool walked in, the kid broke into tremors, a telltale orgasm on his face, and painted his own fucking torso with his cum.

Deadpool nearly came in his suit.

“Christ.”

Peter's eyes flew open wildly. He looked broken, torn to pieces. And he was kind of contorted on the floor, leaning back on his own foot. The scent of slick was ripe in the air, and Deadpool could feel that scent go straight to his dick.

“Wade,” Spidey panted, his whole body and cheeks flushed with pink. For a second, it looked like he was terrified. But the blown pupils were heavy-lidded, and he lazily pulled his hand up his own chest, trailing his fingers in his cum, looking vaguely surprised. “You shouldn't have seen this....”

Wade nearly dropped the Chinese food. “Bullshit,” he managed to say. The smell of Peter was really getting to him now; he felt fog of a rut starting in the back of his mind.

[ _ You left him alone and he had to jack himself off. You're a fucking dick, _ ] White said viciously.

{ _ Shut up, White, you know it's not going to make any difference. The kid needs a knot to satisfy himself. He can't do it on his own. _ }

Wade tried to ignore the boxes, but they had a point. Peter's face was pink post-orgasm, but the heavy-lidded, slack-jawed expression wasn't going away. Still trying to breathe in through his mouth, Deadpool carefully set down the food, approached the kid, took him up under the armpits, and set him unsteadily on his feet. “Petey, you okay?” Peter looked down at himself as if he'd never seen his own body before. In his pants, his dick was still visibly erect. The ropes of cum were smeared on his chest, and the rest of the fluid had gotten –  _ fuck _ – on Deadpool.

{ _ Let's break our own spine just so we can lick his cum off our chest. _ }

Wade desperately pushed his oncoming rut to the back of his mind. Still, he felt tingly in all the right ways as he examined Peter's body for any problems or injuries. The kid swayed where he stood, and as Wade looked around the back of him, Peter's head immediately rested on Wade's shoulder. It didn't matter; he could easily support all of Spidey's weight if he had to.

As Wade took an account of Peter's back, he noticed that the ass of his pants was wet. Gingerly, Deadpool reached down and pulled back his waistband. A wad of soaked tissues was shoved down the back of his pants, all reeking of slick. Peter was wet,  _ so _ wet, for him. The rut pushed in on his mind, and Wade felt the telltale pressure in his belly; his body wanted to pump cum directly into the Omega's ass. If he didn't address it shortly, the pressure would build until it was excruciating.

All the same, it was the most important to take care of Peter, and damn, the kid was wet and sticky.

“Petey, baby, maybe we should clean you—” Deadpool started valiantly, but the suggestion died on his lips. Peter's nose was buried in Wade's neck, right at his scent gland. And Spidey was breathing deeply, and for fuck's sake, he was moaning.

[ _ Oh Jesus. _ ]

{ _ Here it comes. _ }

The rut hit Wade full force. He grabbed Peter around the torso and pulled him into his body, reveling in the feeling of his fully hard cock against Peter's cum-covered abdomen. It didn't matter if he was going to be able to crack the front of his suit in half tomorrow; the only thing that mattered was fucking the lithe eighteen-year-old in front of him until the kid couldn't take it anymore. He'd known Spidey for years, but he wanted to see exactly how flexible the hero could get; he wanted to press him against the wall, bend his legs up, and—

“Fuck,” Peter groaned.

[ _ He's...finishing our sentences for us, _ ] White said breathlessly.

“You...you okay, Spidey?” Deadpool managed, equally breathless as White box.

Deadpool was the one who was in a rut, but Peter had started rolling his hips against Wade's body like his life depended on it. “Jesus, Wade, I—” He faltered. “I can't think straight—”

Wade cupped the back of Peter's fuckable hair and pressed the kid's face into his shoulder. “Shh, baby boy, then don't think.”

 

____ PETER

 

He was crater, an endless emptiness surrounded by an edge of little explosions and burning nerves. His orgasm had been intense—one of the most intense things he'd ever experienced—but it brought no relief. As Wade stood him up, legs like jelly wobbling under him, he looked down and realized that he was still hard. And it wasn't just a post-orgasm erection that would eventually deflate; he was still achingly, desperately hard. If it was even possible, Wade's Alpha scent only made it worse. Yet, his scent was so, so good.

Peter found one of the sources of Deadpool's pheromones right up under the crook of the mercenary's ear. The more he breathed in the scent, the more urgent his need became. He didn't even realize that he was moaning lowly into Wade's neck until the man had crushed him in his arms, plastering Peter's sticky chest against his own.

Excitement jolted through Peter's body. He could feel Wade's erection through his costume, pressed against Peter's ribs. God, he wanted it inside him. And he could detect that Wade's scent had changed very slightly; it was the same aroused musk, but now there was some urgency behind it. Peter didn't know a lot about Alphas, but the mercenary's sudden breathlessness when he asked the kid if he was okay was a pretty telltale sign that he had gone into a rut. The heady desire of Deadpool's scent was hitting Peter in waves that crashed through him; he was pulsing slick and precum so much that it almost made him dizzy. Fluid was leaking down his legs at an embarrassing pace.

All he could feel was a cacophony of sensations and the sickening emptiness as he pushed his hips against Deadpool's hard, suited body. “Jesus, Wade, I—” Peter tried to collect himself, but failed spectacularly. “I can't think straight.”

The hand that forced Peter's head into Wade's shoulder nearly crushed his nose, but it pressed Peter's face closer to the pheromones and –  _ Jesus Christ – _ he smelled so good—

“Shh, baby boy, then don't think.”

The words had barely registered in his mind when Peter felt Deadpool suddenly shift his grip to Peter's ribcage. In one blink, Peter was on his back on his bed, his head bouncing hard against the pillow. The frame of the bunk beds groaned in protest as, still suited, Wade climbed on top of Peter, the white eyes of his mask wide.

_ Oh God, this is it, he's going to knot me, _ the voice in his mind whimpered. Yet, the mercenary was still fully-clothed, in his skin-tight suit. Even with the pheromones flooding the room, Peter could smell hints of sweat, the New York streets, and blood on the fabric. “Wade, the suit,” he panted, reaching up only to fumble the front of the cloth awkwardly. There didn't seem to be a visible zipper.

“Believe me, baby boy,” Wade said through his mask, “you'll want the ensemble to stay on.” He paused for a second. “I thought for a moment about ditching the katanas and firearms, but you seem like you'd enjoy a little danger in bed.”

Peter closed his eyes and tried to breathe, tried to think logically for a second. His whole body was tight, like a rubber band ready to snap. But more importantly, the parts of his body which were touching fabric – either the comforter, his pajama pants, or Deadpool's suit – were nearly burning with sensitivity. It was like he could only have skin-on-skin contact.

“Wade, please, it fucking hurts,” Peter argued, bracing himself against the merc's shoulder and feeling even the palm of his hand twinge with irritation.

Deadpool didn't seem to understand him. Instead the mercenary only got closer, murmuring, “That's what Daddy's here to fix.” Wade was now straddling Peter – as well as he could, on the twin bed with the bunk overhead – and the weight of Wade's hips pressing against Peter's only amplified every sensation, from the emptiness, to the ache of his cock, to the cool, damp slick that he was lying on. When he felt Deadpool's fingers begin to work down the waistband of his pajama pants, despite the burn of the gloves on his skin, Peter found himself bucking up into the mercenary with all of his strength.

“Christ, Petey, that was so hot until my head hit the underside of the completely useless bed above us,” Deadpool breathed. “Like, do you even have siblings? What the hell is this one for, hiding your porn stash?”

The banter between the two of them was something that Peter appreciated. He still remembered the first major fight he'd ever been in, in Germany, and how the guy with the carbon fiber wings had basically told him to shut up. Only Mr. Stark had ever really seen the benefit of being witty and talkative during a fight – somehow, it helped him be less scared when shit was going down. Then Deadpool had turned up and given them both a run for their money. Sometimes, when Peter was out on a boring patrol, he even hoped Deadpool would turn up, just so they could have a little more humor in their evening.

Now, however, Peter didn't fucking care.

All he could think, feel, or care about was the way his body seemed to be imploding, and the only thing that could stop it was Wade. With desperate hands he tried to get behind Wade's hips and his own to push his pants down further; he simultaneously felt his whole body begin to tremble. His eyes were closed so tight that he didn't even realize that tears were streaking down into his hair.

The weight on his front suddenly disappeared, leaving the emptiness in his body to bloom forward. He choked on a sob. The world was swimming; he was drowning, then....

Suddenly his pajama pants were around his ankles. Then, quietly, Wade, saying, “Lift your hips for me, baby boy.” His voice was a low growl, hungry, and Peter felt a fresh wave of pheromones as he dug his heels into the bed to raise his hips off the mattress. The soaked mass of tissues underneath him was swept away.

Finally Peter opened his stinging eyes. He was naked, except for his pants around his ankles, and his whole body was trembling, dotted with pink heat and shiny with sweat. His erection was stubbornly still aching, reaching up in front of him. The whole room smelled of pheromones and it was all becoming far too much. Then, he realized that the red-and-black clad mercenary was standing just next to the bedside table.

Wade's mask was rolled up halfway, exposing his mouth and lower half of his face. And he was taking off his gloves.

The mottled skin didn't bother Peter at all. On the contrary, he felt his heart beating faster. Yes, he was an Omega, and he needed this Alpha to mate with him, because, well,  _ biology _ . But more than that, he could see Wade's pale lips, and the strength of his hands as he unfastened the holster from his thigh, and in that moment, Peter's lips fell open in a truly helpless way as he felt the emptiness inside him reach a peak.

He found the mercenary's white eyes. “Wade. Please,” he breathed.


	6. Never Been Kissed Like This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This may be the moment you've been waiting for. Thank you for reading along, and thanks for the helpful comments!
> 
> I want to say something quickly about the consent in this story. I had a request for "Non-Con/Extremely Dubious Consent" tags to be put on the story. I made the decision to add a plain "Dubious Consent" tag. Firstly, it should be said that I am absolutely fine with putting that tag on here as a kind of trigger warning. It is not up to me to dictate what the reader's triggers may be, what their life experience has been, or how a scene is perceived. If something reads as dubiously consensual, I will of course be happy to warn people about it. 
> 
> However, I should also say that it is my intent, as the author of this fic, for the sex (at least thus far) to have been between two consenting adults. If that has not been properly shown, that is my failing as a writer. Obviously within an A/B/O fic like this, we have the issue of one or both characters not being an entirely stable state of mind (seeing as Peter's biology causes him to go into heat). In real life, this altered state of mind would disqualify participants from being able to really consent to a sexual activity. As things are in this universe, Peter and Wade have understood the situation, and have agreed that this is the course of action they should take. 
> 
> Again, consent in reality is a lot more cut-and-dry, and we can all thank the Universe that we don't suffer from second genders that essentially make sex a necessity. I just wanted it to be clear what my intent for this story is -- and again, if there are ways to make that more obvious while staying true to the characters and the story, I will try my best. Yay for digging myself into a hole.

____ DEADPOOL

 

Peter's flush was enough to nearly send Wade into a frenzy.  And the teenager’s pleas for the mercenary to remove his own clothes were going straight to his groin as much as they terrified him.  It was nearly impossible to gaze upon the wiry, almost fragile-looking kid fixed under his legs and NOT want to blow his load right then and there.  But seeing as poor Spidey needed Wade’s knot to find any relief from his desperate hormones, it was a bad idea, to say the least, to be premature in any way.  Besides, coming in his skin-tight spandex wouldn't be satisfying for Deadpool, either.

{ _ THEN WILL YOU GET ON WITH IT?!? _ } Yellow screeched in Wade's head.  { _ Seriously, you're not doing us OR the kid ANY favors right now. _ }

Wade knew it, too.  Peter had gripped his shoulder, the kid’s super strength actually pleasurably painful against his muscle.  With his rut boiling in his belly, Wade made for Spidey’s pajamas, trying not to consider how innocent he looked under him.  

WHAM.

Spidey bucked upward so hard that the back of Wade's head smashed into the iron frame under the second bunk. He blinked away stars for a moment as White and Yellow briefly flipped out in his mind.

[ _ Ow, ow, ow. _ ]

{ _ Why are we fucking Spider-Man on a fucking BUNK BED?  Does this kid not have proper furniture?! _ }

[ _ Well, we live on worse most of the time.  When’s the last time we had a proper bed? _ ]

Deadpool couldn’t help but voice part of Yellow’s sentiment out loud, but as the voices continued their furious banter, Wade blocked them out.  He had bigger things to worry about. Judging by the force at which his head had cracked against the iron frame, Spidey had put all of his super-strength into that thrust.  And the kid was starting to tremble below him, trying to push off his own pants. Peter was losing control, hard.

There was really no way around it.  Wade was going to have to take off some of his clothes, and he had to do it fast.  If Peter used his safeword at the site of Wade’s body, at least Wade could shove it in Iron Ass’s face.  Part of him couldn’t help but think that it might have been better for somebody -- ANYBODY -- else to do this, instead of him.  Sure, Banner would probably have ripped the kid in two with his monster schlong, but who didn’t secretly want to get pounded by the Hulk?

{ _ Stop thinking about the Avengers and fucking end this kid’s misery! _ } Yellow bellowed, breaking Wade’s thoughts.

[ _ I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Yellow’s right.  Seriously, let’s just fuck Spidey. Buck up and take our clothes off. _ ]

{ _ Also, just saying, I can’t believe we’ve needed to voice this 57 times.  You are the ultimate tease. And so is this author. _ }

Wade felt Peter’s tremors under him, and with a shock to the gut he realized that the kid was fucking crying, too.  The moment was now, or he might as well have bowed out ages ago. He’d agreed to take care of his Omega, and he wasn’t doing it.  Deadpool had made the kid jack himself off, he’d made him cry, and now it was time to actually be an Alpha.

Finally feeling the clarity of action, Deadpool shakily climbed off Peter and helped his pajama pants down to his ankles.  The pale superhero shivered on the bed, his { _ pretty impressive _ } cock standing up red against his pinkish-splotched body.  Wade could see a mass of soaked tissues under the kid’s ass; a fruitless attempt to stopper the slick that was coming out of him.  

“Lift your hips for me, baby boy,” Wade managed, nearly surprised when it came out in a growl.  As he carefully swiped the sodden tissues out from under Peter’s ass, he had the sudden feeling that he’d never been so simultaneously in-control, and completely seized by desire, as he was now.  There was only one thing he knew; as much as he felt desire burning through him, it was a complex desire. Wade wanted Peter for sex, but he also wanted to protect him, and make him happy, and keep him safe, and love him….

{ _ Excuse me? _ }

Wade tossed the crumpled tissues in the trash and tore off his gloves.  He wanted to overthink everything, but now wasn’t the time. It wasn’t because of his rut, either -- as much as his body was pulsing, ready to burst, it seemed as though that was happening in another world.  This was about Spidey.

He ripped his babies, Bea and Arthur, off his back and started working on the various firearms and explosives on his person.  Although he’d definitely had sex with a weapon or two within arm’s reach, he didn’t want any accidents. He didn’t want Peter to be nervous.  And, somewhere deep down, he wanted Peter to be able to touch him. As messed up as his skin was, the prospect of feeling someone really, truly  _ touch _ him was wonderful.

[ _ Best take it slow, though.  Spidey could hurl if he sees too much of you at once. _ ]

Wade looked down at the kid, still splotchy pink and looking nearly out of his mind.  His cock was dark, overly-hard, the curly hair at its base still sticky-looking with jizz and sweat.  Wade bent down, his fingers fumbling to unstrap the gun from his thigh. Peter’s scent was permeating his nose, making it harder and harder to concentrate.  In the top edge of Wade’s vision, Peter’s body flinched.

Wade looked up, straight into the kid’s eyes.  Peter’s gaze was heavy, dark, but more than that, it was desperate, innocent...a gut-wrenching childish lust.

“Wade, please.”

“Oh hell.”

The gun fell to the floor as Wade got on top of Peter in one animal-like motion.  It had been years since Wade had helped an Omega, but his rut was pushing his basest instincts to the forefront of his mind.  He barely needed to think as he grounded his knees into the mattress, took Peter’s trembling thigh into his hand, and gently pushed the hero’s legs apart.

Some Omegas needed a little bit of work to open.  Wade had been particularly good at it in the past.  But the way slick dripped onto the comforter as Deadpool situated Peter’s hips into an elevated position told the mercenary that there wasn’t a lot of work to be done here.

With Peter’s hips sitting on his thighs, and Peter’s leg slung up over Wade’s shoulder -- { _ MotherFUCKER Spidey is flexible _ } -- Wade could feel how much Peter needed to be knotted.  All the same, it was best to use fingers first, just to get him accustomed to the feeling.  Knowing Spidey, Wade doubted that the kid had ever had anything up his ass. 

Carefully Wade slipped his hand between Peter’s legs, watching Spidey’s face closely.  

  
  


____PETER

 

_ This is it. _

Peter had never had sex before.  He’d kissed a few people -- well, maybe just a couple, but he liked to count Liz because he figured they would’ve kissed if things hadn’t gone south with her dad.  But kisses didn’t matter now. This was something else entirely, something that he had no control over. His heartbeat was gushing in his ears frantically, and he could feel each pulse in his arteries.  And then he felt Wade’s hand.

Deadpool was staring at him through those unnerving white windows in his mask, but Peter couldn’t bear to meet his gaze.  Instead, he forced his eyes shut, reached overhead with one hand, and gripped the post of his bunk bed as the first finger, dizzyingly hot and yet cold all at the same time, burned into him.  

He wanted to just take it, just experience it, as if it was their choice to be here, as if this were really his first time and not just some necessary act brought on by biology.  But his body wouldn’t let him forget the true purpose of the intimacy. The emptiness was devouring him from the inside.

Peter pushed hard against the bunk bed post, and down onto Deadpool’s finger.  

“Fuck, baby boy.”  Deadpool pushed back.  Again. And again.

Peter’s grip began to go white.  Each thrust was pushing little blazing fireworks up into his body and out his limbs.  Yet, he couldn’t break the rhythm if he tried, if he wanted to. With his one heel digging into the bed, and the other leg uselessly pushed up against the merc’s shoulder, Peter edged his hips down repeatedly, lopsidedly.  

“Petey, you’re going to hurt yourself like this,” Deadpool growled, but Peter knew that Wade was nearly just as powerless to slow down, now that they had started.  He didn’t need super senses to hear Wade’s panting. 

He definitely didn’t need super senses to feel Wade add a second finger.  

Stinging pain singed up his back as he felt himself stretch around the mercenary’s scarred digits.  With each thrust, Peter felt more slick pulse from inside him, more pre-cum dribble from his cock. He tried to relax against the stinging burn of it, the terrifying new-ness and foreign feeling of someone else penetrating him.  The only sensation that wasn’t novel was the aching need resting heavily on his belly. As if it could help bring him back to reality, Peter reached for his shaft. The brush of his thumb over the slippery head was enough to make his hips jerk erratically before his wrist was suddenly in a death grip, anchored to the mattress.

Peter blinked sweat out of his eyes and, in a daze, realized that Deadpool’s red and black mask was far closer to his face than he remembered it being.  The mercenary still had his left hand inside Peter, but his right had caught Peter’s hand away from his dick. “What’re you --”

“Don’t touch yourself,” Wade said commandingly.  “You don’t touch yourself, baby boy. Or you’re just going to work yourself up and we’ll have to start all over again and I’m going to fucking take CARE of you this time!”

For a moment, they both panted, staring at each other.  In front of him, Deadpool’s mask was daunting, familiar and anonymous all at once.  

Then, as if it was a decision that had to be made quickly or not at all,  Wade’s hand let go of Peter’s wrist, found the bottom of his mask material, and pushed it higher up the bridge of his nose.

His scarred lips captured Peter’s mouth.

Peter had never been kissed like this.  It wasn’t shy, it wasn’t cautious, it wasn’t a high school kiss.  It was the kind of kiss that forced his tongue to work out of instinct, to press back against the rough texture of Wade’s skin, to feel his smooth teeth as they bit into Peter’s lip.  He could scarcely breathe; the only air that he managed to get was through the part of his nose that wasn’t crushed against Deadpool’s rolled-up mask. Then, he felt Wade’s tongue deep in his mouth, pressing in in the same way that his fingers were pressed inside Peter, penetrating him in the two parts of his body that could be penetrated…

A third finger sent a hot shock up Peter’s spine, and a moan that he couldn’t hold back vibrated against Deadpool’s tongue.  The sound only seemed to egg the mercenary on. In a moment, the kissing turned hot and languid, and the thrusting fingers followed suit, slowly, painstakingly pulling out and pressing back in against his pulsing slick.  With each motion, Deadpool rocked his hips forward against Peter’s abdomen. With his eyes closed, with his hand gripping the wall, with his body and cock pinned under the weight of the merc, and feeling Wade’s tongue and fingers take him together, Peter felt the desire in him boiling.  He groaned warningly as pressure built in his balls.

Wade lifted his hips away from Peter’s pelvis, removing the sensation from his shaft and narrowly avoiding sending Peter into an orgasm.  But the assault on the rest of his body didn’t stop -- it merely changed. 

“Oh baby boy, I’m rutting so hard right now,” Wade murmured against Peter’s lips, and the fingers inside him curled, spitting fireworks back into Peter’s arms and legs.  “You feel incredible, and so wet, and so tight.”

“Wade, please.”  Peter felt the fingers curl again, and another shock wave went through his body.  “ _ Christ _ , what are you --” 

Deadpool’s face nestled against Peter’s shoulder, keeping Peter’s body pressed to the bed as he curled his fingers again, touching something inside Peter that had never been accessed before.  “I’m just trying to hit the right places, Petey baby. Just trying to get you ready without letting you spill it. You feel my fingers, right?” Peter murmured something that he hoped came across as affirmative.  “You feel when I move them like  _ this _ ?”  The last word was punctuated by another curling motion, and this time the sensation forced Peter’s hips upward uncontrollably.

“Oh God, oh  _ God _ …”

Deadpool smirked against Peter’s neck, gently teasing his Adam’s apple with his teeth.  “Every man has a prostate, which feels nice, baby boy, but Omegas have this perfect little spot unlike any other that pushes all the right buttons.”  

Peter swallowed hard, feeling Deadpool’s teeth against his Adam’s apple.  With each curl of the mercenary’s fingers, he felt like his body was being split up the middle and put back together again.  Even without any touch on his cock, he could feel pressure building unbearably once more. “Wade, you’re...you’re going to make me…”

“I know, baby boy,” Deadpool whispered, “I’m so on-edge, I’m going to come the second I push my dick in your slick little ass.”

And suddenly, the fingers that had been mercilessly teasing Peter were gone.

Peter’s whole body arched upwards, suddenly empty, even emptier than his heat had been making him feel, the emptiest he'd ever been in his life.  Deadpool was shifting over him, changing positions, moving parts of his costume, and yet Peter was nearly immobile with the sheer unbearable nature of it all.  The last time he had felt this desperate, this... _ alone _ ...he had been standing in the hospital waiting room, being told that Uncle Ben was gone and never coming back.  Or maybe he had been more alone when he had been lying in the old Avengers Tower, having just learned he was an Omega.  Peter had needed someone then. And now he needed someone again. Someone who could understand him, someone who could take care of him when the pressure of being Spider-Man -- of being Peter -- was too much.  

Dimly his eyes focused on the scarred skin before him.  Wade’s lips were rough, but the way his mouth was slightly parted as he fumbled with something out of sight was surprisingly soft.  Then, as Peter realized exactly what the mercenary was doing, he felt a rush of affection that he hadn't experienced for more than a handful of people in his life.  Wade could understand him.

In a measured whisper, Peter breathed, “I want you, Wade.”

The mercenary’s white eyes widened in his red mask as he looked down at Peter’s trembling lips.  “I know, baby boy.” The Adam’s apple in his red masked throat bobbed. “I'm just finding a condom.”

Peter’s mouth was dry.  “Fuck the condom.”

Deadpool squinted, still fumbling around in his suit pockets.  “Well, I intend to fuck you, THROUGH the condom, but the sentiment could be the same, I suppose.”

Peter would have laughed if he weren't so wildly desperate.  Of course they needed a condom. Getting knocked up was not an option.  And he had heard of Omegas who got pregnant in their first heat, because their Alpha had neglected to wear protection.  No one ever blamed the Omegas in these situations -- it wasn't up to them to be in their mind enough to think about wearing a condom -- but it was still the Omega that had to deal with it.  

Peter shook the thought from his head as the sound of crinkling foil prickled his sensitive ears.  He was practically humming with anticipation. Wade’s body was situated heavily above him, dominating, making him feel closer to something, closer to someONE…

“Ready, Peter?”

The sound of his own name breathed through the scarred lips made Peter shiver all down his body.  

“Yes.”

Wade’s fingers curled around Peter’s, pressing the back of his hand into the mattress.  “Use that safeword if you need it, baby boy. I got you.” Then, Wade leaned in closely, gently touching their lips together.  “I got you,” he whispered into Peter’s mouth.

Peter couldn’t help but close his eyes in anticipation; for a moment, there was stillness.  Then, the electrifying sensation of Wade’s cock at his entrance made Peter bite his lip and stop breathing.  

Every nerve in Peter’s body seemed like it was tingling, and the emptiness inside him pulsed.  There was nothing for it, now. With a groan, he hooked one leg around Wade, dug the other heel back into the mattress, and keened upward and down the bed, pushing the mercenary into him.  

“Jesus  _ fuck _ .”  Wade gripped him tightly, most of his body still covered in leather, which was burning a little against Peter’s ultra-sensitive skin.  But it was nothing compared to the stinging, stretching sensation that was forcing Peter out of his mind and into his body. 

Peter had never had anything inside him like this before -- except Deadpool’s fingers, of course -- but all the same, he could only imagine that no one else,  _ no one _ , was like Deadpool.  He had to be massive. Wade was so deep inside him that Peter would have sworn he could almost feel the mercenary in his chest.

It was so much at once that the air was gone from Peter’s lungs.  He gaped, open-mouthed, eyes wide, his fingers digging into Deadpool’s suit so hard it nearly hurt.  And yet, for a moment, the emptiness inside him was full.

Then Wade pulled back.

It was like ice water had poured into his stomach; as Wade gently withdrew himself from Peter’s body, the emptiness immediately began pooling back in him.  He felt his muscles contracting around Wade, and a wave of slick followed the mercenary as he slid back to the tip of his cock. Peter couldn’t contain a small whimper as the empty feeling rolled back with a vengeance.  

Then Wade thrust back in.

And this was the battle of it all.  Every time the mercenary pressed into Peter’s body, filling him, the crushing emptiness immediately left.  But as Wade pulled out to prepare for another thrust, the icy nothingness flooded back in. And so, as Wade took a gentle pace, Peter was thrown between moments of sheer bliss combined with burning fullness, and slight relief marred by complete agony.  Every time Wade pulled away from him, Peter almost convulsed forward, uncontrollably moved by the sensations that were tearing him in two.

It had to end.

As Wade began to pull himself back once more, Peter pressed Wade’s hips forward as hard as he could with his foot, slamming the mercenary back into him.  “ _ Faster _ .”

“Oh hell, Spidey, I…”

“Wade,” Peter managed breathlessly, against the mercenary’s throat.  “You don’t understand. I...I  _ need _ you to go faster.  I need you to fuck me harder.”

Deadpool stopped moving entirely, the white eyes of his mask staring down into Peter’s face.

“Okay, Petey, I got you.”

The merc didn’t disappoint.

Stars blistered into being behind Peter’s eyelids as Wade started truly fucking him.  It must have been loud and obscene; the combination of the squealing bedsprings and the wooden frame of the bunkbeds slamming into the wall would have been deafening to Peter’s sensitive ears if he’d been in any mind to pay attention.  Instead, he had gone nearly blank. Where there had been the horrible ebb and flow of Wade’s smooth, slow thrusts dragging him between bliss and longing, there was now a near constant storm of sparks shooting up his back, through his pelvis, and down his arms and legs.  He was suspended between two universes: fullness unlike he had ever felt, and emptiness unlike he had ever endured. And it was electric.

“Oh,  _ fuck _ , Spidey...oh,  _ fuck _ ….”  Deadpool was groaning from somewhere far off.

Peter didn’t know where his limbs were.  He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. All there was, was the driving force that was Wade on top of him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt his throat open and felt air push up from his lungs.

“Jesus  _ fuck _ , Petey, you have to make that sound again.  Oh my  _ God _ I’ve never heard anything so beautiful in my life.”

Wade’s voice drew him out of his body just enough to realize that he was, indeed, making noise.  The electricity in his body forced more air from his lungs; the sound registered in his ears this time.  It was the lowest growl of a moan -- something he’d never heard from anyone, let alone himself.

In response, Deadpool was suddenly crushing Peter to his chest.

“Spidey, that was...I can’t…”

The constant electricity sparking through Peter’s body faltered, exploded, faltered again.  Wade’s brutal thrusts were becoming irregular, desperate. The space between the two universes expanded slightly, pulling Peter apart at the seams.  He was going to go mad; each merciless movement threatened to break him and put him back together again. And now, he could vaguely feel every inch of the dense weight above him pressing him down into the mattress.  Heat was building at the front of his pelvis from the overwhelming friction; the pressure compounding in his belly was too much….

Wade’s knot was what shattered him.

Suddenly, Peter was burning more than a regular thrust; Wade groaned as he tried to pull back but couldn’t.  In an instant, the divisiveness of the movement, the maddening back-and-forth, cracked wide open. The pressure in his pelvis rolled into one mind-blowing wave after another.  There was nothing for it. Peter clung to Wade for dear life, face pressed into the mercenary’s shoulder.

Wade was shaking on top of him.

Peter wasn’t sure how long they stayed that way, with Peter holding onto Deadpool as though he were the only tether to survival.  Whether it was took a minute or five or ten, Peter could finally feel his senses coming back to him, slowly but surely. He could feel Wade’s muscles, still succumbing to little tremors above him.  He was aware of the sounds of Queens outside. He could smell the sweat and slick permeating the pheromones in the room. And he could feel Deadpool, still inside him.

Peter separated his face from Deadpool’s shoulder and blinked his damp hair out of his eyes.  He could see just slightly above his field of vision that there was a good-sized crack in the paint where his bed had repeatedly banged against the wall.

“That was incredible,” Wade muttered into the pillow.

Now that most of his faculties seemed to be coming back to him, Peter couldn’t help but feel the physical after-effects of the whole ordeal.  And, he couldn’t help but notice that Wade was still solidly hard, still embedded in him. What was more alarming was that he couldn’t seem to unclench the muscles that held Wade in place.

“Get...get off me,” Peter choked.

Wade surfaced from the pillow immediately, the upper half of his face still masked.  “What?”

“You’re still -- you’re still in me, get off!”

The man above Peter hastily pushed himself onto his hand to take the weight off Peter’s body, but he couldn’t pull out.  Instead, he gently held Peter’s shoulder into the mattress. “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t panic, all right, Petey? It’s okay.”

“Why can’t I...why can’t I relax…?”  The words seemed to flood out of him, tinged with anxiety that he immediately felt shameful for.

“This is all normal.  This is textbook, baby boy.  Don’t worry. It’ll just be a few minutes.”

Peter stared up into Deadpool’s white mask eyes.  Slowly, he took a breath.

“That’s it.  Breathe, Spidey.  You did fantastic.  You’re the sexiest thing on the planet.  You’re the finest arachnid in Queens.”

Despite his panic, Peter couldn’t help but feel Wade’s banter start to calm him down.  “Oh yeah?” he managed to choke, trying to participate as a way to ground himself in reality.  “How many other arachnids have you been seeing in New York?”

Wade shrugged.  “There’s quite the catch up in The Bronx.  But she’s not as flexible as you.”

For a moment, they were quiet.  Then Wade said seriously, “Do you feel better, at least?”

Peter closed his eyes, waiting to answer until he’d taken a mental stock of his body.  The horrible, compelling need in his belly seemed to have dissipated; everything else was exhausted.  “Yeah. Tired, but better.”

By the time Peter felt Wade gently pull out of him, he was barely awake.  It was hard to know what was more exhausting: the sex, or the heat. All he knew was that he was lying in a rapidly-cooling mess of his own fluids, and yet he couldn’t help feeling pleasantly warm and content.


	7. When Did He Get So Affectionate?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I went for a long walk in the dark the other night to think about my plot. I'm pretty sure I know where I want the story to go now. Unfortunately, this is my last chapter that's "on retainer" but I'm writing as fast as I can! Because this is a work in progress in the most honest sense -- I'm writing it as I go now -- I may go back and make edits to the chapters as I see fit. 
> 
> As for an upload schedule, I think it will be safe to say that once a week is a good amount. I'll try to be uploading before the weekend begins so you all can get the maximum reading time.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and the support! The comments are a treat and have been incredible motivation. I love seeing all your responses to the story. Hopefully I keep giving you guys what you want. Blessings :)

____ WADE

 

Peter weighed next to nothing, but he was still slightly cumbersome lying limply in Wade’s arms.  The kid was spent, dazed and exhausted.

{ _ And sticky, _ } Yellow added.

Wade tried not to knock Spidey’s head into the doorframe as he carried him into the tiny apartment bathroom.  When he managed to draw open the shower curtain with his teeth (his mask was still rolled up), he found the saddest excuse for a bathtub that ever was.  Even some of Wade’s safe-houses, which were usually some of the saddest living accommodations in existence, had bigger tubs. This one was shallow as hell and not long enough for a seven-year-old girl.  His plan to lovingly sponge-bathe his little spider went right out the window.

Instead, Wade gingerly lowered Spidey’s feet to the tub floor and let the superhero lean heavily on him while he bent over and tested the water.  

[ _ I sure hope this place has decent water pressure. _ ]

{ _ And it better be scalding hot.  There’s nothing worse than a piss-off lukewarm shower. _ }

“Yeah, well, I’m trying,” Wade muttered in response.  Finally he got the tap about as close to an acceptable temperature as it was going to get.  He pulled the knob that turned on the showerhead and straightened up hastily to get out of the way of the stream.

Although Wade was still supporting Peter, the water seemed to be bringing the kid back to his senses.  He reached one hand up and weakly rubbed his eyes before pushing his mop of fuckable hair out of his face.

“All right, baby boy, now I’m going to take care of you like a good Alpha should do.  You just do your best to stand up straight.”

Wade barely got a mumble in response, but it was enough for him.  He left Peter’s side for a moment to grab a threadbare washcloth off the bathroom counter and soaped it up with the nearly-empty hand soap pump at the sink.  If they hadn’t been in Peter’s rundown apartment, and there had been a proper bathtub, Wade would have bought out the entire Lush Cosmetics store in Hempstead (it wasn’t as busy as the ones in Manhattan) just for the bath bombs and let Peter soak in a colorful druggy dream of baking soda and essential oils.  As it was, he was going to wash his Omega standing upright in a shitty shower with a washcloth and hand soap. It was starting to piss him off that Iron Ass hadn’t at least paid for them to bang in a luxury hotel with a goddamn jacuzzi.

It might have had something to do with his unnatural strength, but Peter was managing to stand unsupported in the tub.  He looked fucking wiped out though, Wade thought. His shoulders were hunched over and his head hung down as if he could hardly work up the strength to raise it.  Water was pouring off his sopping hair and dripping off his nose and chin. 

{ _ Is he shivering?  Get in the shower with him! _ }

It was tempting to follow Yellow’s instructions, but despite everything he and Spidey had just been through, Wade could not yet fathom stripping down buck naked in front of the kid.  Especially not when Spidey was a porcelain god. Even with his whole body sagging, all of the hero’s muscles were visible under his taut, flawless skin. He didn’t have much body hair, so the water ran smoothly down his front until it finally reached the respectable little patch surrounding the base of his tired cock.  Compared to Peter, Wade looked like he’d hung out with Wolverine in the bottom of the well during the atomic bomb blast. 

{ _ Hugh Jackman is a fine, fine gentleman. _ }

“Stop distracting me,” Deadpool muttered as he gently placed his ungloved hand on the back of Peter’s neck.  The hero seemed to barely register the touch, so Wade raised the soapy washcloth and began carefully running the rough fabric down pale skin in long strokes, letting the water soak into the sleeves of his suit while he worked.  He started with Peter’s back, then made his way down, taking care to sponge away the slick that coated the backs of Peter’s thighs. Spidey was trembling a bit, but so far he was standing on his own, breathing evenly, almost like he was asleep on his feet.  Which, White was pointing out, probably wasn’t far from the truth.

Wade went over the rest of Peter’s body in smooth drags, re-soaping the washcloth with more hand soap as the hard water killed the suds.  He ran the cloth down Spidey’s [ _ beautiful _ ] abs and over his jutting hip bones, but made a point to avoid any of the naughty zones.  Not only would they probably be very sensitive still, but the last thing Wade wanted to do was tease the poor kid, especially in his brief reprieve.  They still had another couple days, at least, of Peter’s heat to get through.

The last thing Wade did was Peter’s arms.  There weren’t very many superheroes that had arms quite like Spidey; when the muscles were loose, they looked like regular, lanky teenager arms that any kid in New York could have.  But Deadpool had personally seen how, when they were supporting Spidey’s weight on the side of a building or by a thin string of web, the biceps bulged impressively and suddenly gave the kid the look of, well, a hero.  Maybe the lean, cording nature of Spidey’s strength was what helped him stay so discreet with his identity.

“Hello, pheromones,” Deadpool croaked quietly as he reached Peter’s wrists.  Just like the neck, the wrists were some prime spots for sexy scents to spill out of during heats.  Even though Peter was still standing in the shower, and water was still running down his body, the strength of the pheromones coming off him hadn’t quite diminished.  It just smelled different; somewhat sated, perhaps. At least for the time being.

But as Wade started slowly massaging Peter’s wrists, imaging what it would be like if Spidey slung web from his actual body instead of from cartridges -- { _ that would be weird as fuck, right? _ } -- the scent of the pheromones changed slightly.  The spice in the undertones of the scent was starting to perk up, like a low hum of arousal coming awake.  Immediately Wade looked up at Peter’s face. His eyes were still half-lidded, but his lips were parted, and barely-noticeable wrinkle had appeared between Peter’s eyebrows.  

“Shhh, Petey, it’s all right,” Deadpool stage-whispered into the kid’s elbow, trying to keep a calm tone but still be audible over the rush of the shitty, lukewarm shower.  “You’ve still got time. No need to rush.” Wade dropped Peter’s wrist, wondering if maybe the kid didn’t have a weird wrist fetish that was getting him excited. { _ I mean, he does spin webs from them.  Euphemism, anybody? _ }  Wade ignored Yellow as he leaned back from Peter’s skin, trying to remove any contact with his body so the kid could rein in his horniness.

But whether Peter was in control at all, Wade couldn’t be sure.  One of Peter’s pale hands slid up the yellowed ceramic tile of the shower wall, fingertips scrunching up like he was spider-gripping for dear life.  This was not good. Peter had probably been in a post-coital reprieve for no more than an hour or so; if he was already getting hit with another wave of his heat, it did not bode well for the kind of madness that would be coming in the throes of the second or third day.

{ _ Speak for yourself.  I think it bodes VERY well. _ }

“Yellow, keep your shit together, I swear to God.”

“Wade,” Peter managed finally, warningly.

Deadpool stood up fast.  He kicked the shower faucet off, stopping the flow of hard water, and threw the threadbare washcloth into the sink.  As he slid out of the bathroom and into Peter’s room to rip the dirty sheets off the bed, he realized that the Chinese food was still sitting on the carpet by the door.  They hadn’t even had a chance to eat yet, and Spidey’s metabolism was sky-high. 

“No time now,” Wade said out loud, as much to himself as to White or Yellow.  “We’ll just make eating a priority in the next afterglow.” Having stripped the slick-soaked sheets off Peter’s bed, Wade looked around stupidly for a blanket or something to throw onto the bare mattress.  There was nothing in the closet, and even the top bunk bed didn’t have sheets on it. Finally, Wade saw a towel that Peter had thrown on his closet door-knob to dry. The towel nowhere near covered the bed, but hopefully it would soak up some of Peter’s slick and protect the mattress.

A groan came from the bathroom.

“I’m coming, Petey!” Deadpool bellowed, and flew back into the adjacent room, only to stop in his tracks when a wave of pheromones hit him.

Peter was facing the shower wall, forehead pressed against his forearms, which were braced against the ceramic tile.  His cock, which had been limp just a minute before, was already stiffening of its own accord, completely untouched.

A drop of slick  _ plinked _ onto the floor of the bathtub.

Wade might have died and gone to heaven; the idea of folding Spidey over on the bed went right out the window.

“Oh, holy fuckcakes, you’re beautiful,” he breathed as he carefully approached Peter from behind, cautiously placing his ungloved hands on either side of the kid’s hips.  It was obvious that Spidey was trying to master himself, breathing deliberately in through his nose and out through his mouth. But hell, when his hips jerked at the slightest touch, it was crystal clear that he was failing spectacularly.  In response, Wade lined up his front to touch every nook and curve of the lithe, tight body in front of him. Peter shuddered and pressed back, hard.

{ _ For the love of God, do not stop. _ }

Truthfully, Deadpool wasn’t convinced he could stop even if he  _ wanted _ to.  His senses were all alive -- not as crazy as Spider-Man’s must have been, but still all the bells and whistles were going off -- and his blood was definitely at the surface of his skin, and getting him excited down below.  He knew that as soon as he was fully hard against Peter’s spine, his rut would be right there, waiting for him to succumb to it.

But he didn’t want to jump in.  Not quite yet.

Instead, Wade pressed his unmasked lips to the place where the fuckable hair met the porcelain smooth neck behind his baby boy’s ear.  His skin was clean and still wet from the shower and Wade could practically feel Peter’s frantic heartbeat pounding in his jugular. 

One hand moved from Peter’s hip to slide up into his sopping brown hair, and the other flattened out across his abs.  “Talk to me, Petey,” Wade breathed, letting his hand play along the curve of the hard muscles in Peter’s stomach. “You still with me?  Or is your heat getting rough on you?”

Out of one eye, he could see Peter’s fingernails digging into his forearms as he braced himself against the shower wall.  Little tremors were cascading up the body in front of him, and pink sex splotches were slowly blooming under the pale skin, leaving marks of arousal all the way from Peter’s ears, past his groin and down onto his thighs.

“Come on, Petey, talk to me.”

Peter’s response came a moment later, low and breathless.  “This is so fucking intense. I’m...God, I already need to come, so bad…”

“You want to come, baby boy?” Wade murmured into Peter’s neck and lowered his hand until it was pressing against the curls just above the kid’s cock.  “You want me to get you off?”

Peter choked on a sob of desperation and his cock jumped against the back of Wade’s hand.  Before he could say anything, Wade dropped his hand to take a firm hold of the hard, hot member jutting out in front of the hero’s hips.  He knew that heats often, well,  _ enhanced _ the size of an Omega’s package, just like a rut did for an Alpha, but there was no denying that Peter was swollen as big as he could go.  Wade gave it an appreciative squeeze and he felt a spurt of warm slick wet the front of his suit where he was pressed up against the Spidey’s ass.  If the red and black of his uniform weren’t white by the time this heat was over, Wade was going to be very surprised (and disappointed). The cooling moisture over the place were his own cock was rock-hard, mixed with the overwhelming pressure of the body flush against his own, suddenly brought Wade’s rut rushing to the front of his mind.  With some difficulty, he shut that shit down.

“This is all about you, Spidey,” he moaned into Peter’s neck, rocking his hips forward at the same time that he ran his grip down the length of Spidey’s cock.  The dual sensations drew a groan from Peter that was so obscenely helpless and filthy, Wade wanted to record it and play it every day for the rest of his life.

Even though Wade knew that jacking Peter off was driving him crazy, the insistency at which the kid was pushing his hips back toward Wade’s own dick made it evident that he wanted more.  It made sense. Peter’s heat was bad, the kind of heat that needed a knot every time, or he wouldn’t feel better. 

[ _ If I could make a suggestion, then, _ ] White started, heavy with the arousal that was pounding through Deadpool’s body.

{ _ We could knot this kid IMMEDIATELY, _ } Yellow finished for him.  { _ Do NOT make us wait five chapters this time! _ }

He knew he had to knot him, because the boy in front of him was coming undone.  Peter’s whole body was shaking; one of his arms moved to grip the ceramic wall above his head with whitened fingertips.  His breaths were coming in labored gasps, something that Deadpool almost never heard, not even after he’d seen Spidey take on six guys at once.  

“Do you want me to fuck you, baby boy?” Wade whispered, lust in his throat.  Peter just whined and pressed his hips back even harder (there was definitely some super strength to his movements now).  “I want a coherent answer, Petey.”

“Yes,” Peter gasped, his mouth barely a centimeter from the wall, eyes screwed tight.  Wade gave him a particularly hard stroke down his shaft, and Peter’s hips bucked wildly.  “Yes, yes, yes, God, yes!”

Once yes would have sufficed, but the five Peter gave him had Wade immediately finding a condom in his pocket.  “Okay, give me a sec to prep.” Still holding Peter’s cock with his right hand, Wade used his left hand to gently guide Peter’s hips forward.  The smell of slick overwhelmed his nose and Wade could see that Peter’s beautiful ass was shining with it. The front of Wade’s suit was dark with moisture, from both Peter and from his own dripping cock.

As he unzipped himself one-handed, still keeping the other hand around Peter, he made the mental note that he was about to fuck an eighteen-year-old in an apartment shower in the middle of an affordable housing building in Queens.  One more thing to check off the bucket list. Did he have a fucking bucket list? A bucket list of fucking? He did now. As long as he had Spidey, he --

His train of thought died.  Because Peter, whose face was now pressed against the shower wall, whose fingertips were gripping the tile like it was the side of a building, was now thrusting forward in shallow, desperate motions.  Small “uh” sounds fell from his lips with each jerk of his body. He was  _ fucking himself into Wade’s hand _ .

Wade’s rut burst into his stomach.  His now free cock bobbed with the sudden  _ need _ and a heavy pulse of precum dribbled out of him.  “Son of a bitch, you are the hottest fucking person on this planet,” he gasped, then ripped the condom wrapper open with his teeth.  White was too distracted to even tell the people reading this fanfiction not to try that at home. With one hand, Wade somehow rolled the condom down his package, barely even making sure it looked right before he pressed himself back into the cleft of Peter’s ass.  Slick coated the outside of the condom as Wade enfolded Peter back into his chest, his left hand coming up to hold Peter right at his collarbone.

This was all supposed to be about Spidey.  But that didn’t matter now. Not with Wade’s rut sitting painfully in his groin and lower belly, somehow so much more pressing than it had been the first time.  Maybe the more intense Peter’s heat was, the more intense Wade’s rut was going to be? He had no idea; he’d never helped someone through an entire heat. Especially not a heat like this.  

He couldn’t even fathom going slowly.  His right hand began to strip Peter hard and fast; his fingers were entirely coated in the kid’s precum.  Peter’s response was incredible -- he jerked in Wade’s arms and Wade felt Peter’s throat vibrate with the force of his shout.  Everything about this was frantic and filthy, including the way that Wade bit into the back of Peter’s neck, lined up his tip with Peter’s soaked entrance, and nudged Peter’s leg up onto the soap holder attached to the shower wall to give him a slightly better angle.  Both of the kid’s legs were trembling, and his desperate, pained groans were growing constant.

There was no finesse to the way that Wade slammed into Peter.  And there were no walls in New York thick enough to dampen the noise that came out of the boy he was fucking.

“That’s it,” Wade grunted, thrusting into Peter as deep as he could go, forcing slick out of Peter and down their legs between them.  “Take it. Take it like a hero, Spider-Man.”

He had no idea why he was being so aggressive or what had possessed him, except the boiling rut that was driving his hips forward again and again.  All the same, Peter was handling it perfectly, like the god he was. His noises were reaching a pitch that was undeniably orgasmic. A ceramic  _ crack _ told Wade that Peter’s grip had broken one of the tiles under his fingers.

It didn’t matter though.  The pressure of his rut was moving from his stomach to settle heavily in his groin.

{ _ Oh god, oh god, oh god, we’re going to knot. _ }

Sure enough, Wade could feel that building tension, that delicious sensation of hot blood and muscle and everything tightening in the base of his cock.  Peter’s entrance was still slick and smooth but with each thrust it felt smaller, a little more confined…

Peter was beyond coherence of any kind, but Wade could feel that he was about to come.  He could feel it in the way that the kid’s balls were tight, the way that he had nearly stopped breathing, the way that his abs were starting to convulse, the way that he was tightening around Wade -- 

The pressure in Wade’s cock hit a peak; he pressed hard into Peter and suddenly couldn’t pull back.  Out of reflex, his left hand shot up to trap Peter’s scream in his mouth; he didn’t bargain for Spidey biting down hard on his hand.  Yet the pain was  _ so _ good, compounded with the hot, silky bursts of cum spurting out of Peter’s cock, the pulsing of Peter’s insides around Wade, the consuming, unbelievable pounding that was shattering Wade from his pelvis out through his limbs.  He could taste Peter’s hair and blood in his mouth where he was biting down.

They rode it together -- Peter pinned between Wade and the shower wall, his face turned to the side, mouth open and eyes shut tightly.  Wade was leaning into him hard, still relishing in the sweet squeeze of his and Peter’s muscles in rhythm together. It was only after they both stood, trembling, for a solid moment that Wade finally unhinged his jaw from the back of Peter’s neck.  A purplish bite mark disappeared into his hairline, oozing red very slightly. 

[ _ Did...did you just  _ **_bite_ ** _ Spider-Man? _ ] White asked in the post-orgasm fog.

{ _ Oh you absolute kinky sack animal, you, _ } Yellow said approvingly.  

Whether it was from the sting of the bite (which Wade had to admit to himself was a little more painful-looking than he’d intended) or just the reprieve from the heat setting in, Peter seemed to be coming back to the world again.  He slowly pulled his arms down in front of him and lowered his right foot from the soap shelf. “H-holy...shit,” he breathed. 

“Sorry I got a little bit nippy,” Wade murmured, though he wasn’t quite willing to break the bliss of the sex yet.  After all, he was still knotted in Peter and would probably be that way for a few minutes. At least Peter didn’t seem upset about it this time.  Rather, he bemusedly reached back and touched the bite on his neck.

“Kinky,” he hummed, a small smile on his face.

{ _ That’s what  _ **_I_ ** _ said! _ } Yellow squealed.

Although his knot was starting to soften a little, Wade felt the distinct desire to hold onto Peter and stay here forever.  The sex had been...well,  _ mind-blowing _ , and Wade wasn’t sure he’d ever come into such a fine ass before.  But it was this moment, tender and quiet, that was slowly expanding in his chest.  Wade swallowed. Shit, when did he get so affectionate?

It took him a moment to realize that the tremors shaking through the body in front of him were probably not only due to the incredible sex.  Although, Petey would have an excuse to be sore for any number of days after his heat. But now that they had gotten Peter through another wave of his heat, and Wade could think about other sensations in his body (besides his goddamn rut), he realized that he was a little hungry.

That would mean that Spidey was probably starving, with his superhuman metabolism and whatnot.

As Wade’s knot reached that place where he could start to pull out, he gently wrapped his arms around Peter’s torso again and took most of the kid’s weight while supporting him upright.  It was a little like holding liquid; Peter was flexible as fuck. Wade squeezed Peter’s side as a warning, then slowly separated them at the hips. Peter made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a groan, his head falling back onto Wade’s shoulder.  The way the kid looked, Adam’s apple sticking out, jawline sharp, throat exposed, made Wade wonder what he’d ever done in his shit life to deserve this moment.

Although the need for food was pressing, Wade couldn’t bring himself to carry Spidey back to his bedroom when the back of him was coated in slick and the front was coated in jizz.  Peter seemed to think the same thing, because in one smooth motion he managed to reach over with his foot and turn on the shower. Lukewarm water spilled onto both of them, making Wade splutter for a moment; Peter kicked the knob in what seemed to be a calculated way, and suddenly the water got hot.

[ _ So there IS a secret to it, _ ] White said appreciatively.

The weight of Peter’s head settled back onto Wade’s shoulder again as they stood under the stream.  Water soaked into Wade’s suit and mask. As much as he was drop-dead afraid to strip off his costume, there was a not-so-small part of him that wanted to get out of his dirty clothes, relish the mediocre Queens water, and actually feel Spidey’s skin against him.  

Then, as if he could read minds on top of all the  _ thwip _ -ing and the crawling and the crime-fighting, Spidey sighed and murmured, “Are you ever going to take off the suit, Wade?”

“You don’t want to see that, baby boy.  Believe me.”

One of Peter’s hands reached up and settled on Wade’s arm where he was supporting Peter around the chest.  “I think you overestimate how much I care about what your skin looks like.”

“Don’t tease me.”  Wade was surprised at how hurt he sounded, and he cleared his throat reflexively.  It was not his M.O. to be emotional.

Peter closed his eyes and swallowed.  Everything about him was gorgeous, from the way that his wet hair was thrown back, to the way the water droplets were beading up on his smooth skin.  Then, before Wade could really comprehend what he was doing, Spidey took his own weight, pushed Wade’s arms away, and turned around, standing naked facing him.

{ _ Hallelujah. _ }

“I’m not teasing you,” Peter whispered.  The kid looked so earnest, it was almost easy to believe him.  He quirked his left eyebrow, which was stuck up in an adorable way.  “Will you let me help you out of your clothes?”

The boxes were silent.  Wade cursed them in his head; where were they when he needed a quip to get out of this situation?  And yet, he didn’t exactly WANT to get out of the situation. Not when Petey’s hands were gently finding the edges of the material and not when he had those uncertain, delicious bedroom eyes.

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t seen me,” Wade tried one last time.  

Peter cracked a small smile and bowed his head forward in disbelief.  “We’re beyond seeing each other, Deadpool. You’ve had your dick up my ass.”

With that, all of Wade’s arguments went out the window.  He didn’t move -- hell, he barely  _ breathed _ \-- while the sexy eighteen-year-old in front of him slowly figured out his suit, found the zippers and clasps and straps, and carefully removed his ensemble, piece by piece.  Wade waited for the kid to turn and run, but Peter kept going, and after ten minutes of his slow ministrations, the last thing to do was for Wade to take off his mask.

He couldn’t remember being this naked with anybody for years.  Vanessa had been the last person that he’d been completely and utterly intimate with; that was back when he was good enough to be voted the Sexiest Man Alive, if only he’d been as famous as SOME OTHER Canadians.  But after being turned into a horror movie villain akin to Freddie Krueger, there had been little point in seeking out a proper relationship. People just seemed to fall away in his life until it was just Blind Al, Weasel, and Colossus.  None of them were great at sexting. Negasonic Teenage Warhead was probably good at it, but that was just wrong.

Now, though, Wade had the most bomb-ass superhero in New York straightening up in front of him, brushing his ever-fuckable hair out of his face.  

Shit, he was hard again.

“I’m going to take off your mask now,” Spidey murmured.

“Petey, you really --” 

“I’ve seen most of your face; you’ve had your mask rolled up this whole time.”  Those pale hands came to the fabric cutting across the bridge of Wade’s nose. “The only new thing I’m going to see is your eyes.”

In a moment, the mask -- the cover that he kept on for days at a time -- was on the shower floor.

“Oh, yeah, and I don’t have any hair,” Wade added, as if it were a final “ha” over Spider-Man’s assumption that one could look at Wade Wilson without going blind.

“It works for you, dude,” Spidey said simply.  Then, while Wade was still wondering what the hell was happening, Peter stepped out of the shower, grabbed the washcloth that had been thrown into the sink earlier, and put it in Wade’s hand.  “I need to sit down and eat because I’m about ready to pass out, but take your time. Except the hot water will run out in about three minutes, so just keep that in mind.” The kid gave him a small smile again before closing the curtain.  

Wade stood there, like a stuck wind-up toy, until the water went cold like Peter had told him it would.

[ _ That was a lot, _ ] White suddenly spoke up.

{ _ Yeah, it takes a lot to get me to shut up, but damn that is one FINE fucking teenager… _ }

[ _ He took off our clothes.  Nobody takes off our clothes. _ ]

{ _ And his eyeballs didn’t even melt out of his head. _ }

“Yeah,” Wade breathed, still staring down at the washcloth in his hand.

{ _ Hey, that thing had Spidey’s slick all over it, right? _ }

“I guess so.”

{ _ Oh HELL yeah. _ }

Wade washed himself down with the dirty cloth, still too surprised to even listen to the boxes chat away excitedly.

 

~~~~

 

Peter’s heat lasted the maximum number of days, around four, if Deadpool hadn’t lost count of the time that had passed after the dozenth time they fucked.  If he remembered anything from the few Omegas he’d knotted in the past and the things he’d learned in biology (when he wasn’t playing hooky), it was pretty common for an Omega to have reprieves between waves of heat that lasted a couple hours or more.  Usually in the middle of even the worst heats, the reprieves were never less than an hour and a half. For Spidey, though, with his super-powered banging needs, the second and third days were so bad that they went by in a haze. Wade would fuck Peter pretty much senseless, they’d collapse onto the bed into a near-unconscious stupor, and barely 30 minutes later, the kid next to him would inevitably start keening into the mattress, still half-asleep.  It got to the point where Wade would just reach over and press what he hoped was a calming hand into the boy’s lower back, trying to steady the frustrated hips, in order to get another five or ten minutes before Peter would start whining pitifully and he’d have to get up and do it all over again.

If he didn’t have an ultra-regeneration thing, he’d have been  _ toast _ .  

An interesting side effect of spending Petey’s heat locked up in the same apartment with him was that, by the third day, Wade knew every little tiny layer of Peter’s pheromones and scent.  He could tell when the kid was getting tired. He could smell the minute change in the scent when Peter was about to orgasm. He could smell the delicious satisfaction that permeated the room in the short reprieves after each fuck session.  

Peter’s pheromones were how he knew when the heat was about to end.

It was after a relatively fast fuck and orgasm on the evening of the fourth day (Wade was quickly losing the stamina to be creative in bed), when Peter finally fell into what looked like a coma for a few hours.  It was the longest amount of time the kid had actually slept since his heat began. As Wade reached over to fix the pillow under Spidey’s head, he caught a good whiff of the pheromones from his neck.

They were spicy and clean -- two things that Wade had come to associate with Peter -- but the notes were weaker than they had been in days.  And under it all, there was a subtle hint of something else. Something a little muddier, a little heavier...a little more dangerous and powerful.

Wade remembered how the doctor, years ago, had said that Spider-Man’s powers interfered with his Omega traits.  As much as Wade couldn’t picture the Friendly Neighborhood, Kitten-Rescuing Spider-Man as dangerous, there was no question that the heavier notes in his scent were going to eventually cover up the spicy, clean smell.  Peter’s body was a lithe little warzone; with the heat wearing thin, the Alpha-like powers were winning.

With Peter still asleep, Wade silently reached over to the bedside table.  He was still naked -- they’d been naked for days, except when one of them had to answer the door for all the delivery food they’d needed -- and it was still strange to see his pale arm stretched out in front of him in the dim room.  

He grabbed his cell phone -- one of many cell phones, since he was a good mercenary -- and scrolled through the contacts until he found the one he was looking for.

 

**Peter is almost done.  He’s still alive, I swear.**

 

The response came after a few minutes.

 

**Good to know.  I’ll come by in the morning.  -TS**

 

Wade took a deep inhale and exhale, then chucked the phone to the floor and pressed his head back into the pillow.  He didn’t like reporting to anybody. Especially not to Iron Ass. But the cocky little billionaire had set up this whole shebang, and he had to coordinate everything.  Peter’s aunt had to get a flight back to New York, the school had to be called...it was just easier to send updates.

The kid lying beside Deadpool stirred slightly.  Wade held his breath, ready to have the reprieve suddenly end.  But Peter just fidgeted in his sleep, then settled back down. Maybe they’d actually sleep through the night -- maybe they were done having sex.

Wade swallowed the strange disappointment in his throat and turned to spoon the superhero.  He let his nose nestle into Peter’s neck, and closed his eyes to the last few remnants of the clean spice.


	8. You Keep This Place Safe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this has been a heck of a week. I've been writing my hands off trying to get this chapter out to you guys. I obviously apologize upfront for any mistakes, typos, or strange wordings that made it through my hasty editing process. Hopefully it doesn't detract from the chapter.
> 
> A couple notes, here. Firstly, I know Tony Revolori's character in Homecoming is supposed to be a year older than Peter, but for my plot here, he's in the same graduating class.  
> Secondly, I hope I didn't make the heat regulators too confusing. This chapter IS a lot of exposition, but I tried to add just a bit of smut at the end to reward your patience.  
> The mission is in the next chapter!
> 
> Thanks for the comments and the motivation. I'll try to get out the next chapter in about a week.

____ PETER

 

Being the kind of person who spent a good portion of his time swinging from building to building, Peter understood the concept of whiplash very, very well.  But there was no kind of whiplash quite like waking up after a heat lasting almost 96 hours.

He felt like he’d been simultaneously moving at the speed of light and barely moving at all, and now he was being gathered in from both sides and placed firmly back into his own body and mind.  Mentally, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever felt more tired. On the other hand, it was far harder to place what had happened to his body. He felt the kind of ache of a good workout, but he also felt thoroughly used in places he had never imagined.  

At the same time, there was the firm strength of his powers under everything.  He hadn’t realized how hard it had been to feel the presence of his powers during his heat until, well, it was over.  Maybe his heat compromised his powers in some way? Or had he just been clouded over by the stunningly distracting force that was his own heat-stricken body?  He’d have to ask Dr. Thompson.

Perhaps the strangest part of everything, though, was waking up and seeing the infamous merc with a mouth, Deadpool, lying absolutely stark naked next to him.

It wasn’t as though Peter didn’t remember what had happened during his heat; he could recall quite a bit of it, though big portions were at least slightly hazy.  He remembered intimately undressing the mercenary in his shower -- along with other activities in the shower -- and how much Deadpool had seemed unnerved by such an act.  Of course, Deadpool wasn’t unnerved by much else, including the absolutely filthy interaction they’d had, standing in the tub. With a start, he remembered the sounds of ceramic tile and paint cracking, and tried to take a mental stock of everything that he’d broken inadvertently over the last four days.  Hopefully Aunt May wouldn’t notice anything, and if she did, ideally she wouldn’t ask  _ how _ certain objects ended up breaking.  He would probably spontaneously combust from embarrassment.

A growl of hunger from his stomach made him slowly sit upright.  There was a light twinge in his lower abdomen -- post-heat cramps, maybe?  It only made sense that after his organs had rearranged themselves at the beginning of his heat, they’d need to shift back slowly at the end.  Gingerly, he got out of bed, trying not to wake the mercenary.

His hunger propelled him straight to the refrigerator, where mercifully there were some leftovers, including Jamaican jerk chicken that had been delivered on the third day of the heat.  The image of Wade answering the door in Peter’s very tight pajama pants brought a grin to his face. Then, with a slight pang of guilt, he remembered that they’d only had five minutes to eat before the burning need had risen back up in his body and Deadpool had taken him over the arm of the couch.  That was how the whole heat had gone -- tiny moments of food and sleep between long periods of hot desire and maddening emptiness. Subconsciously Peter felt the small of his back, where Deadpool’s hand had pressed countless times in response to Peter’s steadily building arousal waking him over and over again.

He felt a strange rush of affection.

A  _ ding _ -ing sound from the bedroom made Peter realize that he hadn’t checked his phone in days.  But, rather than enter the real world so quickly, he found himself going slowly, taking in the quiet apartment while he microwaved the chicken.  The keys were still on the table, the money still under the cookie jar, and Peter could almost believe that no time had passed, except for the horrific state of his bedroom.  And the stain on the couch.

And the mercenary in his bed.

The microwave beeped and Peter tore it open, realizing how ravenous he was.  He nearly burnt his tongue on his chicken (plus it was spicy as  _ hell _ ), but he started scarfing it down anyway.  He cleaned the plate before stopping to wonder if he should have saved any of it for Deadpool.

Speaking of Deadpool...how was the morning about to go down?  What was the usual procedure after a heat? Was it going to be a sort of casual dismissal, almost like they had been meeting up for business?  Or was he supposed to be, well,  _ affectionate _ toward the man?  Of course, he did feel a great deal of appreciation and relief that Wade had helped him through his heat, and fairly masterfully it seemed, but now that they’d spent a heat together, were they supposed to be...something?  Friends? Fuckbuddies? Peter knew that not everyone who shared a heat was in a relationship, but it definitely made things a little more on the complicated side. Especially since there was something deep in him that seemed to care a little bit more for the mercenary than he had four days ago.

His phone made a noise again from the bedroom.  Peter ditched his plate into the sink (on top of a  _ massive _ pile of dishes,  _ shit _ ), and padded toward the open door.  He stopped the instant he walked into the room; Deadpool was sitting up in bed, flipping through  _ his _ phone.

“Um...what are you doing?”

The man looked up from the screen.  With his face illuminated from the one source of light -- the phone -- Peter could far more easily see the pockmarks and the horrific scarring on his face.  It was obvious from the way that Deadpool had skirted around taking his suit off for so long that he was self-conscious, and now that Peter was looking at him clearly, he had to swallow the opinion that Deadpool certainly had a reason to be.  All the same, the skin’s strange texture wasn’t overwhelming to Peter. And, he remembered telling Wade in the shower that the baldness suited him. It was true -- there was something about the man on the bed that made his whole appearance work.  He immediately felt awful for the fact that Wade had kept on his suit as long as he had. Well, he would have felt worse, if Wade weren’t looking at his phone.

“You’ve got a couple texts; nothing concerning,” Wade yawned, tossing the phone back onto the bedside stand with a loud clatter.

“Okay…?  But why were you looking at MY phone?” Peter asked, trying not to get angry.  He supposed that Wade, being a mercenary, was used to being up in other people’s business.  It didn’t make it right, but he couldn’t blame the mercenary too much for forgetting normal societal boundaries.  Unless he’d seen something embarrassing. Peter felt his face flush.

“Mine’s all the way over on the floor,” Wade said casually, as if that were a good enough explanation.  “Plus I was looking to see if we could expect that walking tin can any time soon.”

Peter hesitated for a second before realizing what Deadpool was saying.  “Wait...Mr. Stark is coming  _ here _ ?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, shit.”  He spun around, looking at the disaster zone that was his bedroom.  It certainly looked and (gross)  _ smelled _ like they’d been having sex in here for four days.  “I can’t let Mr. Stark see my apartment this way. I have to clean this up before Aunt May gets home, too.  Fucking shit.”

There was so much to do.  The sheets that they’d used the first night were on the floor in a ball, still dirty.  They’d grabbed Aunt May’s extra set of sheets for the rest of the nights and used a towel to help keep Peter’s...fluids...in check.  He grabbed a fresh pair of boxers from the drawer and threw them on hurriedly, making a mental tally of how much he had to do.

“Hey, hey, Spidey, don’t freak out,” Wade said easily from the bed.  The mercenary scooted off the bed slowly and stood up in all his nakedness.  Peter couldn’t help but look at him. The muscles rippling under the rough skin were impressive.  Deadpool bent down and retrieved his phone from the floor. “We’ve still got a whole buttload of time before the Iron Boy Wonder shows up.”  He flicked through his text messages. “Like a whole twenty minutes.”

Peter spluttered.  “Twenty minutes? Mr. Stark is going to be  _ here _ in twenty minutes?”  

“Is that  _ no bueno _ ?”

“I mean, it’s not like Mr. Stark hasn’t seen my room before, but it didn’t happen to be covered in jizz that day,” he answered sarcastically.

“If your room isn’t covered in jizz at all times, you’re just not living right, baby boy,” Wade sang, but he simultaneously began stripping the bed of the dirty sheets.  The two of them moved around the room at a decent clip, Deadpool actually helping clean up the empty food containers, the sticky spots on the furniture, and the general debris that four days of living in one room brought on.  Peter’s tiny wastebasket was brimming, but at least the room didn’t look like a trash brothel anymore.

“Here, Petey, throw something on.  Stark will be here any minute, and if he sees your sexy ass shirtless we’re going to hear his dick ping in his metal undies.”  Peter looked over at the loud-mouthed merc just in time to see him turn to his shoulder, looking put-off. “Shut up, Yellow. I don’t have to take your crap.”

Peter couldn’t help but smile at Wade’s chatter with the voices.  He remembered a few times in the last several days where the man had been almost having whole conversations without Peter.  He figured it threw other people off, but it didn’t bother him too much. Peter gently drew Wade’s attention back to him by carefully taking the T-shirt out of the mercenary’s hands.

“Thanks.”  

For a moment, they met each other’s eyes.  

The phone in Wade’s hand vibrated.  “Holy fuckbuckets, he’s almost here.  And I still got lil’ Wade out.”

It took Peter a lot more effort than he cared to admit to not burst into laughter.

Wade found his suit and accessories both in the bathroom and in various places of the bedroom.  It was much easier to appreciate just how many weapons the man kept on him when Peter actually got to see him load up.  And it was obvious that getting dressed was down to a science; Deadpool put on his suit and everything with it in less than a minute.  Perhaps the most impressive thing, however, was just how filthy the suit was, especially down the front. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t let the billionaire see you slumming it with a cum-covered homeless anti-hero,” Wade said as he pulled the mask down over his mouth, muffling the voice just slightly.  “I’ll slip out the window, Spidey-style. I’m sure your neighbors are used to seeing a guy in red spandex exit out of here.”

Peter shook his head.  “They better not be. I’m still incognito, Wade.  If you go out the fire escape, you have to be careful.”  All the same, he was grateful that Deadpool could understand how mortifying it would be for Mr. Stark to see a nice sampling of Peter’s fluids all over the mercenary’s suit.  

Wade looked out the window.  “I think I see an Audi pulling up.  After all, would this really be taking place in the Marvel Universe without a car sponsorship?”

“That’ll be Mr. Stark, I’ll bet,” Peter said quietly.  He wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t really all that happy to see Wade go.

Suddenly, there was a leather-clad hand on his chin, gentle, but firm.  Peter looked up into the white eyes of Deadpool’s mask. “You going to miss me, Spidey?”  The hand on his chin somehow took his breath away; Peter opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out.  It was almost a good thing, because he had no idea what he was going to say.

Then Wade did something that made Peter shiver all the way down his body.  He gently pulled Peter’s chin closer, bent down, and whispered in his ear.  _ “Because I’ll be missing you.” _

The air on Peter’s neck made him close his eyes and inhale slowly.  A small part of him wanted to just get back into bed with Wade -- not to bang, just to cuddle.  It seemed like he hadn’t had the opportunity to truly enjoy having the man in his bed; it had been all about sex, food, and passing out.  Then again, it was  _ Deadpool _ ...should he have even  _ wanted _ to enjoy it?

The hand on his chin was gone.  Peter’s eyes fluttered open to see the window open wide enough for a man to crawl out.  Although he knew he had to close the window, he felt rooted to the floor. Deadpool was going to miss him.

A knock on the apartment door made Peter jump.

He hastily slammed the window shut and ran out to the kitchen to pull the door open.  Tony Stark, wearing a tidy suit as always, was looking very out-of-place in the dirty apartment building hallway, this time seemingly alone.  Peter was sure that Happy was around somewhere, or perhaps there was some bodyguard downstairs, but all the same, Mr. Stark was here to speak to him, effectively one-on-one.  Peter swallowed and gestured the billionaire inside, extremely conscious of how stupid he looked in his boxers and a T-shirt. Why the hell didn’t he take the few seconds between Deadpool’s exit and Tony’s entrance to throw on some damn pants?

“Well, Mr. Parker, I hope everything went...smoothly?”  Peter could see on Mr. Stark’s face that the man was searching for words.  

“Yes, sir.”

“Wade was a good one?”

Peter couldn’t do more than nod.  For a moment, they both stood there, not looking at each other.  Then, Mr. Stark raised his hand, seemed not to know where to put it, and settled on clapping Peter on the shoulder.  “You wouldn’t happen to have some tea, would you, kid?”

While Peter scoured the cupboards for a tea packet that wasn’t more than a few years old, Tony Stark sat down at Peter’s table, across from where Aunt May had left the keys sitting.  He had to admit, he wished that Mr. Stark would just break the silence with something. Instead, they simply existed in awkward silence, Peter waiting for the mug of water in the microwave to get hot.

When he finally sat down across from Mr. Stark and scooted the tea across the table, he silently willed the billionaire to say something.  Anything, really.

“So, about your suppressants.”

_ Anything but that. _

“I’ve worked everything out with Dr. Thompson.  You don’t need to use the suppressants anymore. Instead, you’re going to be using...er...heat regulators.”  Mr. Stark furrowed his eyebrows like he’d rather be anywhere else than explaining heat and birth control to an eighteen-year-old kid.  Peter wanted to sink into the floor. This was not how he had imagined having conversations with Tony Stark back when the man had recruited him freshman year.

“Mr. Stark, I gotta ask… are these going to be more injections?”

“No, no.  These are going to be pills.  You’ll pick them up once a month from Dr. Thompson’s office specifically.  They’re apparently specially formulated for you to create a balance between your powers and...the other part of you” (Tony gestured vaguely at all of Peter) “and when you stop taking them every month, you should naturally go into heat, according to the good doc.  But if you don’t, we can get more inducers in here. I’ll text you the address of the office and you can swing by sometime this week. Literally, I suppose.”

A very large lump of shame seemed to have grown and settled in Peter’s throat.  He forced himself to swallow painfully. “Okay.”

Mr. Stark shrugged.  “You’re brave, kid. I don’t want you to feel otherwise.”

The comment seemed out of left field.  “Okay,” Peter said again, more quietly, trying to look more confident than he felt.

Mr. Stark suddenly pushed himself up from the table and began pacing the dining room, clasping his hands behind his back like he wasn’t sure where else to put them.  “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk business. We’ve got a mission coming up.” 

Peter just stared.  He had completely forgotten about the mission.  And yet, that’s what it had all been about, hadn’t it?  They’d wanted to start his heat immediately so that he would be ready to go for the mission.  Because they needed him, Mr. Stark had said.

“It’s not too far away, just a hop, skip, and a jump over the border.  It’s actually another damned Hydra base, if you’d believe it. Can’t seem to wipe those assholes out.”

Peter felt incredibly awkward just slouching at the table while the billionaire circled the room.  The cup of tea was untouched on the table, getting cold. “So you need me for the mission?”

“Of course.  We’ve got a couple assassins at our disposal if we really needed them, sure, but you’re always gung-ho to get your feet wet, aren’t you?”  Mr. Stark had stopped at the old curio in the corner, opened it, and was now examining an old, flowered porcelain plate that Peter supposed had belong to Aunt May for as long as she had been alive.

Holy shit, Mr. Stark was actually inviting him on a mission.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.  Heck yeah. I’m up for it.”  It was true that he’d felt like he was on retainer for far too long.  Mr. Stark had always recommended he just be a “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” except when he’d very briefly offered up the suit that he’d affectionately called the “Iron Spider.”  But after Peter had turned him down, it had been a pretty mundane, low-to-the-ground life. Maybe Mr. Stark was finally offering him a mission because he was an adult now, and old enough.  Or maybe they just really needed Peter’s skill-set. Either way, he wasn’t about to turn it down. Not when the old excitement of being an Avenger -- or as close as he could be, for now -- was starting to well up in his chest.

“Great.”  Mr. Stark put the flowered porcelain plate back with a little less finesse than Peter would expect from a billionaire with a lot of fine things.  Then again, Mr. Stark’s fine things were all a lot more current than a porcelain plate. “I’ll send you the details, along with the address of the office.”  He turned to Peter. “Good to see you.”

Peter stood up quickly and held out his hand.  “Yeah, always, Mr. Stark.” The man standing across from him gave him a small, sympathetic smile, and Peter felt a stone of guilt drop into his stomach.  “I wish it could have been under different circumstances, of course.”

Mr. Stark gripped his hand, pausing like he was going to say something, and then simply gave it a firm shake and let go.  “All the best, Mr. Parker.”

“Same.”

And Tony Stark disappeared out the door, leaving Peter with the stone of guilt weighing down all of his excitement.

 

~~~~~

 

“Dude, you’ve missed so much school this year.”

Peter shrugged as he fished his late homework out of his backpack.  “Somehow I don’t think any of my teachers would have wanted me here instead, not this time.”

“You got the Spanish assignment done, though?”

“Yeah.  I was up way later than I wanted to be, but I got pretty much everything done.”  He showed Ned the folder of assignments that he’d needed to do in lieu of missing so much class during his heat.  “I can’t promise anything is done well, but I tried.”

Ned shuffled alongside Peter as they made their way to class.  Of course, Ned had a thousand questions. “So, did it hurt like hell?  Did you actually let him do you? Did you try anything really freaky?”

“Yes, yes, and God, that’s disgusting.  I’m not answering that.”

“Did he have a good time?”

“‘A good time,’ really?  I don’t know.”

“Are you guys like a thing now?”

Peter pressed his lips tight and glanced over at Ned, who seemed like he was so busy thinking up the next question that he didn’t even bother to look at Peter.  “I have no clue.”

“But --”

“Seriously, Ned?  Stop asking weird shit.”

His friend only went quiet for a moment.  “Are you going to use him for your next heat?”

“God, Ned, keep your voice down!” Peter hissed.  “I do not want anyone to find out about this.”

“But are you?”

Peter shrugged.  “Dude, I don’t know!  I guess it depends.”

“Would you want to do it with him again?”

“Oh my God, stop.”

Just as Ned was opening his mouth to say something else, someone walked out of the classroom in front of them, not looking their way until Ned practically bowled into him.

Of course, it had to be Flash.

Peter didn’t remember when Flash had started bullying him, but it certainly hadn’t gotten better when they both joined decathlon and Peter was instantly better at it.  Even after the spider bite, Flash was still imposing. He couldn’t help but take a step back as his burlier peer rounded on him.

“Hey, hey, it’s Penis Parker.  What kept you away so long, you get mono from making out with your hand all the time?”

“Shut up, Flash,” Ned mumbled.  It was a valiant attempt at bravery, but as Peter and Ned often did, the comment fell slightly short of intimidating.

“Not talking to you, Leeds.  I’m asking Parker what he’s been up to.  We had a lot of physics labs that he was a no-show for.”

Peter felt like an idiot, standing in the hallway with his books pressed up against his chest like a shield, when he could have easily showed up Flash in any fight or any feat.  But it wasn’t worth sacrificing his own secrecy or his own identity. “I had a family emergency,” he said firmly.

A lot had happened since Uncle Ben died, but most people still remembered it happening.  At their school, a lot of people knew each other, and almost everybody had heard about poor Peter Parker, who was already an orphan, who had now lost his uncle in a tragic murder.  Bringing up his family still carried weight. People still remembered that Peter didn’t have it easy.

Flash rolled his eyes, but seemed to have lost the will to keep egging him on.  “Well, you better turn in your portion of the fucking assignment. I’m not taking a hit to my grade for you, Parker.”

“I will, Flash.”

Suddenly, a prickling sensation shot up the back of Peter’s neck and into his hairline.  Flash’s eyes darted up to something just over Peter’s shoulder. With a jerk, Peter spun around, falling into a wide-legged fighting stance that coiled kinetic energy in his muscles, ready to flip himself backward if necessary.

Principal Morita was standing there, arms folded.  “Parker? My office.”

It took a moment for Peter to swallow the adrenaline that was pounding through his body.  When he finally relaxed out of his stance, Ned was gently pushing him on the back to follow the principal, who was halfway down the hallway somehow.  Flash had already turned tail and gone the other way.

“Peter, go.  I’ll catch up with you in class.”  Ned was giving him a look that said, “ _ I hope you’re not expelled. _ ”

As Peter made his way past the last-minute students running to get to class, he couldn’t help but think that graduation couldn’t come soon enough.  If he even made it to graduation. “I’m fucked,” he whispered as opened the door to the office.

 

~~~~

 

It had been a very long time since Peter had gone so long without being Spider-Man.  He was always Spider-Man, of course, but he usually donned the suit and swung around on patrol at least three or four times per week.  Spending a ton of time on the streets seemed to be getting harder and harder now, and he was constantly under pressure from his teachers to get his homework done.  The good news was that everything would have been even more complicated if he hadn’t earned the science scholarship to Empire State University. Of course, Tony Stark had once told him that he had some pull at MIT.  But there really wasn’t another option when a place like ESU wanted to give you a free ride. So Peter hadn’t needed to do a ton of applying and choosing as far as his future went. Plus, with ESU being so conveniently located in Greenwich Village, he didn’t really have to worry about giving up his life as the city’s web-slinging mascot, even though he wouldn’t really be in the “neighborhood” anymore.  Manhattan also had much higher buildings than Queens, but he’d done his fair share of swinging around the high buildings on the island before.

Unfortunately, what with his heat, his opportunities to get out there had been extremely thin on the ground.  Not only had he been somewhat incoherent for several days, but Aunt May had been fussing over him since she got back, and his homework had really piled up.  It seemed like his teachers were intent on reminding him where he really should be -- at school, instead of out for three consecutive days with a mystery illness.  Maybe Principal Morita had suggested that his teachers lay it on thick. After all, Morita had all but told him that another incident like that would result in a loss of credit from his classes.  Missing several days in a row like that without a doctor’s note just didn’t fly at Midtown Tech, not even with Aunt May phoning him in. 

Of course, Omegas had special allowances, but Peter was still in the school’s system as a Beta, and he didn’t want that to change anytime soon.  He’d just have to time his next heat very strategically.

At least Dr. Thompson had been working hard on his behalf.  He’d decided to get to her office the pedestrian route on Friday afternoon (Mr. Stark had said he could pick up the prescription sometime during the week, probably because he was unlikely to lapse so quickly after a real heat) and he ended up taking the subway; it was lucky that the address Mr. Stark had sent him was really not a far walk off one of the stops.  It was only when he reached her office that he realized that she probably still only knew him as Spider-Man. So he’d emerged from the damp subway station, found one of the alleys of lower Manhattan, and changed into his suit, which he had been carrying in his backpack routinely for the last few years. It was only after he felt his grip on the brick wall in front of him that he realized it had been several days since he donned the suit.  

And in the warm sunlight of the mild March afternoon, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of liberation that he hadn’t had since the needle had gone into his arm.

He had enough experience with finding addresses from the outside of a building; it was all about counting the windows.  Of course, he still sometimes  _ almost _ made mistakes.  The first window he thought might have been for Dr. Thompson’s office, based on the windows he counted on the outside of a towering office complex building, was cracked open slightly and was leaking the smells of a high-end hibachi kitchen.  Frowning, Peter gripped the wall with one hand, leaned out as far as he could, and recounted the windows from the bottom. Off by one floor, of course. He dropped down a row of windows and peered through the glass.

A woman with short black hair was sitting at a laptop computer behind a desk in a largely empty room.  The only other pieces of furniture were an Ikea-quality cabinet that featured a heavy padlock on the outside, and a faux-leather armchair positioned in front of the desk.

It had been a while since Peter had actually seen Dr. Thompson, but her blunt haircut hadn’t changed.  She might have even been wearing the same dress under her white coat that she’d been wearing all those years ago.

Peter supposed that she didn’t expect him to come to her office via the window, but he  _ was _ clinging one-handed to the side of an office building exactly nineteen stories above the Manhattan pavement.  He might as well go in this way. He shifted his backpack on his shoulders and gingerly tapped on the window.

Dr. Thompson’s head whipped toward the window, but she didn’t look afraid.  Instead, she had a slightly bemused expression, judging by the angle of her dark eyebrows.  She stood from behind the desk and made her way to the window to heave it open.

Peter went in head-first and rolled into a standing position, jostling his heavy backpack around.  “Hey, Doc. Hope this is a good time to drop in.”

The fairly petite woman threw most of her weight into closing the window before brushing her hair out of her face, turning toward him, and folding her arms.  “Spider-Man. Glad to see you could make it this week. I was starting to wonder when you’d turn up.”

Peter swallowed.  “Well, I...well, Mr. Stark said I could come...you know, sometime this week, so…”

She raised a hand dismissively.  “No, no, don’t worry about it. You’re still good, time-wise.  I’m just glad you didn’t wait too much longer.”

“Oh.  Because, otherwise I’d…?”  Peter didn’t want to finish.

Dr. Thompson gave him a small nod.  “Lapse into a heat unexpectedly? Not necessarily, but we don’t want to take any risks.  Not when you’ve got New York to look after.”

As the doctor made her way back to her desk to type something on her computer, Peter couldn’t help but think that he remembered why he was fond of Dr. Thompson.  She didn’t really talk down to him the way that other people seemed to with Omegas. Even Tony Stark had taken a somewhat pitying tone with him. This woman hadn’t done the same.

“Want something to drink?  We’ve got coffee, tea, water…” she started listing off, not taking her eyes from the screen.  “I’ve just got a few last-minute things to take care of before the end of the week, so I’ll just be a second.  You can settle in, if you want.”

“I’m good on the refreshments,” Peter answered, but he shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and flopped into the armchair.  He was glad it was the squishy kind, not the stiff kind.

As Dr. Thompson bent over her keyboard and did whatever she needed to finish up, Peter took further mental stock of the office.  Now that he was inside, he could see the items that were nailed to the exterior wall of the space. Her doctorate certificate was framed near the window, for one.  She had also gone to ESU, he noted with some interest.

It wasn’t the only thing that caught his eye, however.  A 24-month calendar was hanging on the wall, opened to April, with just a few sparse notes penciled in.  The theme of the calendar featured some ancient buildings that looked like they were in Central America. It added a colorful flair to the otherwise fairly monochrome office.  Then, something else caught his eye -- on the edge of Dr. Thompson’s desk, there was a photo of a large family with people of various skin tones, ranging from quite pale to quite brown, sitting at a vast table covered in foods Peter couldn’t even identify.  He could easily pick out Dr. Thompson’s blunt haircut on her pale face, near the edge of the photo. She looked significantly younger, however -- the photo might have been from ten years ago. Her arms were slung around one of the very brown men, who was sporting a grin nearly as wide as his face.

“Almost done,” Dr. Thompson muttered, chewing the inside of her cheek.

“Take your time,” Peter said absent-mindedly.  Somehow some of the people in the photo looked familiar.  But, they would all be presumably about a decade older currently.

“All right, I’ve got that other stuff done, and your records pulled up.”

Peter sat up a little straighter.  “My records?”

Dr. Thompson met his eyes.  “Well...you know, as much of a record as I can compile.  If it makes you feel any better, it just says  _ Spider-Man _ at the top of it.  Though, I have to confess, I know your eighteenth birthday was sometime last week.”

He couldn’t help but feel somewhat shaken.  Once you pin-pointed someone’s birth date, their identity wasn’t far away.  But he folded his arms as cooly as he could. “Oh well, I’m sure there are loads of people who just turned eighteen.”

Dr. Thompson came out from behind her desk and went to the locked cabinet, digging around in her coat pocket as she went.  “I really don’t have any interest in knowing who you are. I’d be more concerned about knowing your medical history and everything, except your powers somewhat void much of your medical history, as far as I understand.  It wouldn’t matter if you were born with asthma or if you had cancer, if my research is correct. The only thing that really stumps your powers seems to be your Omega status.”

“How have you done research on my powers?”

Dr. Thompson withdrew a key from her pocket and started unlocking the cabinet.  “Well, I did do a blood draw a few years ago when Tony called me to the tower. Of course, I had to do some on-the-spot tinkering to see what your second gender was and hypothesize why you were lapsing into heats instead of them coming on regularly, you know.  And I confess that I was curious about some of the science after, too. After all, there are tons of mutants out there who also have second genders and maybe need similar help. Understanding the relationship between mutations or radioactive reactions and second genders could, honestly, change a lot of people’s lives.”

Peter hadn’t thought about it very much; he knew that there was the X-Men school in Westchester County and that there were other mutants and people with superpowers, obviously.  He’d fought any number of them on the tarmac at the airport in Germany. But wouldn’t there have been more news about mutants having trouble managing their second genders? Peter had always kind of thought he was the only one, as ignorant as that sounded now.

“Unfortunately, I doubt very many people with powers reach out for help.  Mutants, especially, may not want the general public to realize that their powers could interfere with their second genders, or vice versa.  It’s not like the government hasn’t already tried to come up with a hundred ways to put down people with powers.” Dr. Thompson turned around, a small box in her hand.  “Here we go.”

Peter got up, but Dr. Thompson motioned for him to sit again, and he sank down onto the squishy arm of the chair.  “I need to explain a thing or two quickly.” She slid open the thin cardboard top of box and took out an inconspicuous, round tin.  The box got placed on the edge of the desk while she pried open the tin.

“All right, so these are your heat regulators,” Dr. Thompson began, holding up a round foil pill wheel, which looked a ton like the birth control that had sat on Aunt May’s bathroom counter for many years, at least while Uncle Ben was alive.  “There are enough pills here for about a month, so your heat will come at the end of the cycle. The white pills are for the first two weeks -- they’re all the same. They release a calculated amount of Omega hormones that most Omegas would experience during their non-heat days.  It’s different from the suppressants because those relied on Alpha-type hormones...and I understand you felt aggressive sometimes.”

Peter swallowed hard.  He didn’t remember ever telling Mr. Stark or Dr. Thompson about the side effects that he felt when he was taking the suppressants, but it didn’t surprise him that somehow they still knew.  He nodded without saying anything.

Dr. Thompson shrugged.  “Well, the good news is you’re done with suppressants, and you shouldn’t have to deal with uncharacteristic behaviors or emotions now.  These are meant to balance your Omega hormones with your Alpha-like powers to a tee.” She picked up a second foil disc in the tin, which was dotted around the edges with fourteen yellow pills.  “Now these are the Phase 2 pills. These are meant for the two weeks leading up to your heat. They start releasing a small amount of heat hormones mixed with the non-heat hormones. That means your body will start gearing up for a heat gradually -- you might experience a few cramps, that sort of thing.  Much better than your reproductive organs rearranging all at once.” She put the two foil wheels back into the round tin, snapped it shut, and put it back in the box before handing it to Peter’s (somewhat trembling) hand.

“Okay, Doc, I got it.”

Dr. Thompson gave him a small smile and crossed back around behind her desk.  “Now, it’s getting close to April, so I’m going to expect you back here before May to get your next month’s dose.  You can show up at the window or wherever. I’m not picky.”

“Cool, cool.”  Peter grabbed his shapeless backpack from the floor and shoved the box safely inside.  “Anything else I should know?”

The doctor folded her arms and hesitated for a moment.  “Yes. I think this goes without saying, but these regulators are...experimental, at best.  I’ve been working on them for over two years, but I’m sure that they could be temperamental in certain ways.  You have to be very responsible about taking them consistently.”

“I understand.  Responsibility is kind of my thing.”

She shook her head.  “I mean it, though. The way that they’re designed is to keep you...teetering, for lack of a better word, on the cusp between Omega and Alpha.  It’s like allowing your Alpha side enough leeway to let your powers continue working at their full capacity, but also providing enough room for your Omega hormones so that they don’t suddenly overpower you and throw you into a heat.  If you miss a dose of Phase 1, I can’t be certain what will happen. You might go into heat, or your powers could suppress your Omega hormones suddenly and make you lash out. If you miss a Phase 2...well, they’re designed to bring you close to a heat without going in one.  As soon as you stop taking them...your heat could hit within hours.”

Peter felt rooted to the arm of the chair.  Something inside him was pulled very tight, threatening to break.  Was it shame? Was it guilt? Maybe he was angry -- it was hard to tell.  He heard the microscopic gears of his eyepieces move as he blinked to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill out.  Why the hell did this always have to happen to  _ him _ ?  Nothing in his life --  _ nothing _ \-- could be straightforward or easy.  There always had to be a caveat, a hitch.  He stared down at his hands, feeling betrayed...by life, by his body, by everything.

Dr. Thompson might have been able to see that he was upset, because she exhaled and added, “I don’t want you to be afraid.  I’ve tried my hardest to make this work for you the best way I know how. I don’t want Spider-Man to be off the streets. You keep this place safe -- you, and Tony, and the rest of them.  I promise that I’ll continue to help, any way I can.” Peter could hear the sincerity in her voice, but it was all a little too much. He swallowed the emotion in this throat and stood to sling his backpack onto his shoulders.

“I...have to go.”

The doctor nodded, her black hair falling forward in front of her face.  She crossed over to the window and shoved it open as best as she could.

Peter didn’t want to spend another minute thinking about his body or his hormones or his special regulators.  He didn’t want to spend another second in this clean, welcoming office. Instead, he barreled toward the window, dove out head-first, and relished the feeling of falling until he slung a web to make his way back toward Queens.

That had been Friday afternoon, of course, and now it was Friday night, and Peter was lying on his bed in the middle of heaps of homework.  He had been trying to catch up before the mission started Saturday morning, but at the moment he was asleep with his face plastered against his chemistry textbook.

_ Ding _ .

The SMS on his phone made Peter jerk awake, the sound of it echoing in his heightened senses.  He fumbled around in his nest of sheets and papers until his hand closed on his cell.

A name popped up on his phone, obviously programmed in by someone other than him.  It read “ **DP <3 <3 <3 wit the fine ass** .”

Peter frowned at his phone and tapped the message open.  First, it was an inexpertly taken selfie of Deadpool in his full gear, holding the blade of one of his katanas up to his face in an obviously sexual way.  The way that those pupil-less white mask eyes looked at the camera made Peter shiver. After the photo was a short text message.

 

**Thinking abt u, bb.  Nothing compares 2 u - Sinead O’Connor.**

 

Peter lowered his forehead to his textbook and started laughing.  It wasn’t just a few giggles, either -- for a moment, he couldn’t breathe, his shoulders were shaking so much.  There wasn’t even anything that funny about it. 

It was just that everything had been so overwhelming recently.  And just whenever he thought he could get a moment to relax, something else came up that made it seem impossible to continue on.  He couldn’t keep doing this -- his real life, and Spider-Man, and be a sort of fill-in Avenger, and an Omega -- but he had to. He had to because it was his responsibility to do it.

And then there was Deadpool, who seemingly had no responsibilities except to himself, who killed people, who Peter should have had on his shit list, if anywhere.  But instead he’d had Deadpool inside him. Instead, he could feel something he couldn’t understand in his chest, just above his shaking diaphragm. He wished Deadpool was here with him now.

Before Peter even thought about what he was doing, he’d rolled over onto his back and undone his jeans.

He hadn’t touched himself since his heat -- he hadn’t  _ wanted _ to -- but as he reached under the waistband of his boxers, he realized just how much he needed to do this.  He was still eighteen, and torn between his Omega second gender and his Alpha powers, and confused about everything in life, but this...this was simple.  He needed this. And it was obvious by the way his body responded to his touch, as if it had been waiting.

Peter breathed evenly, or at least tried to, as he worked himself to full hardness in less than a minute.  With his left hand, he pushed his boxers and jeans lower until they sat just under his hips, freeing his shaft from its confines.  Of course, he could never be quite as swollen now as he would be during his heat, but it didn’t stop his cock from darkening under his hand, and it didn’t stop the ache of being full of blood.  It didn’t stop the drop of precum that beaded at the tip.

Peter ran his thumb over the precum and spread it down his length.  Just the sensation made his muscles tighten. His eyes fluttered closed, blocking out the iron frame of the bunk bed and the blue light of his alarm clock on his bedside table.

As he leaked more and more precum, and worked it down his cock in long, firm strokes, he had to appreciate this moment.  It was all under his control. He wasn’t a mewling mess right now -- he could take his hand away from himself at this very moment (albeit with some difficulty, perhaps), and go on with his life.  He didn’t need an Alpha’s knot just to get some relief from the desire that was slowly building in his body. And there was no emptiness eating him alive, forcing slick out of his body like a wanton invitation to get fucked and impregnated by a strong Alpha.  He could get off and finish right now, without a dick up his ass.

All the same, as Peter kept going, feeling sweat start to gather at the edges of his hairline and heat build between his legs, he couldn’t help but think of Deadpool, and the way that the man had held him, and taken control.

Images of the mercenary’s body, ridged and yet smooth with taught muscle, flooded his mind.  Peter’s knees bent of their own accord, falling to the sides as he sank into the memory of Wade touching him.  If he focused, he could almost feel the sensation of Wade’s incredible thrusting pounding into him from behind.  The mere thought lifted his hips from the mattress.

And as the vivid memory of Wade’s knot pushing into him overwhelmed Peter’s mind, he realized that it was this knot that shoved him over the edge every time.  Every time he’d finished when they had sex -- the dozens of times Peter had cried out and pulsed ejaculate and slick out of his tight body -- happened just as Wade had sunk himself into Peter and held himself there.

Now, alone on his bed, the thought threw Peter’s head back into his textbook and pulled a groan from his throat.  Faster than he’d thought he would, he was racing toward the edge, the filthy thoughts of his heat bringing his orgasm straight to his cock.  His balls ached as pressure broke in his pelvis, and pulsing pleasure radiated out of him, spurting cum up and onto his T-shirt. He didn’t make a sound, just pressed his head back harder, his chin tilted up while his eyes were squeezed shut and his mouth was open in a silent, lost yell.

For several minutes, Peter just lied on his bed, panting into the gathering darkness.  Tiny tremors spasmed in his muscles as he came down from the moment. For just a short time, all he had to think about was the own sensation in his body.  And Wade. He was thinking about Wade, too.

When he finally got his breathing back to its normal pace, he slowly sat up and pulled his shirt off over his head.  It was plastered with his own cum, so he used it to clean himself up before pulling his boxers and jeans back on. He tossed the shirt into his laundry pile and flipped back over onto his stomach, phone in hand.

Peter aimed the front-facing camera carefully, knowing that not much of him was illuminated in the dim room, before capturing the photo and hitting “send.”

Some part of him hoped that when Deadpool opened the message, he’d see past the silly face Peter had made and notice that there was a post-orgasm flush playing around the edges of his messed-up hair.


	9. Still Warm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an interesting week. I had intended to write the mission, but after some great ideas from last chapter's comments section, I went in a different direction. Of course, it ended up being a smut direction, but I hope you guys don't mind. The moral of the story is that I do read the comments and I do take ideas from them, so if you want something to happen, throw your idea out there :)
> 
> I also didn't write as much as I would have liked. My full-time job requires typing for most of the day, and while I love keyboarding and I'm good at it, I do sometimes experience pain in my hands and wrists. This was a particularly bad week for that, so I apologize that this chapter is shorter than the previous one.
> 
> Next chapter: Avengers mission for real this time.

___ WADE

 

Weasel’s rundown bar was a hole in the wall.  The toilets didn’t flush properly. Every drink he made tasted just a little bit metallic, like the pop dispenser had been made with a lead hose and never was elevated up to code.  If you looked at somebody funny, you could probably get a nice, fat fist to the nuts. There was honestly no place better, in Wade’s opinion.

At least, until he spent a long weekend in bed with Peter Parker.

“Earth to Wade,” Weasel teased in his whine of a voice.  “You’ve been sitting at the bar for 16 hours, buddy. It’s time to get up and have a life.”

[ _ You ever think about how much Weasel sounds like T.J. Miller? _ ]

{ _ I usually think more about how we’d probably shoot him if he weren’t our best friend. _ }

Wade pulled back the hood of his sweatshirt and cupped his hand behind his ear jokingly.  “What was that? I couldn’t hear you over how much I don’t care.”

Weasel grimaced and took Wade’s empty glass.  “You’re a damn disgrace, you know that? Seriously, you haven’t been this fucked since V --”  The greasy man’s lips snapped shut as soon as he caught sight of Wade’s face, which he hoped was displaying the look of pure murder that he felt in his heart.  “Never mind.”

“Piss off, Weasel.  I’m just killing time here until you do your fucking duty and get me another job.”

“Wade.  There aren’t any jobs right now.  Couldn’t you go do something for those jacked-up action figures upstate?” Weasel tried.  “Couldn’t Spider-Man get you in with those guys?”

Wade sat back, nearly offended.  “I could never sink so low as to team up with the Avengers.  I can’t believe you’d think that, you absolute dick.”

“I think you already teamed up with Spider-Man, if you know what I mean,” Weasel joked, shaking up a martini for an ugly-ass motherfucker sitting at the end of the bar.

“That is different.  That team-up I’d do any day.  I’d destroy that ass night after night if I could.”

Weasel slid the martini down the bar without spilling it -- years of experience and laziness, probably -- and folded his arms.  “You call him yet?”

“Who, Spider-Man?”

“Yeah.  How long are you supposed to wait, two days?  Three?”

Wade felt his frustrating sitting heavily in his chest.  “That wasn’t a damn date, Weasel. That was a heat, and he just needed me to bang him through it.  We’re not a thing.”

Weasel shrugged.  “Well, I don’t have any work for you right now, Wade.  So you should probably occupy yourself with SOMEthing, and if it’s calling up that fine booty and getting some outside of the needs of biology, you shouldn’t pass that up.”

Of course, that was why, two hours later, Wade was standing on a rooftop in Queens, in his suit, trying to figure out the best angle for a selfie to send to the webhead.

He didn’t know exactly what his endgame was here, but when he snapped the photo and sent it to Peter, he couldn’t help but add a little extra message.  It was an honest one, too...he was thinking about Peter.

{ _ Maybe he’ll call us and ask us to come fuck him again, _ } Yellow thought cheerfully.

[ _ Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.  Sure, Peter needed our cock when he was in heat, but do you think he’d ever fantasize about us otherwise? _ ]

Yellow was pouting.  { _ Boo.  You’re no fucking fun. _ }

After Wade sent the message, he wasn’t sure what to do.  Maybe Spidey would just see it and then close the message and not send anything back.

“Maybe he’ll call us.”  Deadpool repeated Yellow’s sentiment as he lied down on the gravelly roof.  He’d thought about staking out Peter’s place, finding a good vantage point across the street from the kid’s apartment, and seeing if Peter was home.  But that all sounded a bit too stalker-y, even for him. Well, not for him. But for his intentions, perhaps?

{ _ You keep telling yourself that.  Keep coming up with reasons why we didn’t go sit outside his window and serenade him with a boombox. _ }

[ _ Because he wasn’t alive yet when that was a thing, maybe? _ ]

{ _ Oh, he’d understand.  Boombox wooing is universal. _ }

“I’m going to have to agree with Yellow, here,” Wade said to the purpling sky.  “Plus, Petey seems like he’d be pretty caught up on pop culture. I definitely saw some Star Wars junk in his room.”

In the cooling March air (it had been a nicely warm day), Wade found himself closing his eyes.  For once, there wasn’t much to think about, except things he WANTED to think about. And, right now, he just kind of wanted to think about Peter.  Having seen the kid’s real, flawless, god-like body meant that he would have masturbation fodder for weeks, if not years. He was really looking forward to the next time Peter emerged as Spider-Man.  That suit did not leave much to the imagination.

A sound like a popping gunshot went off nearby.  Wade opened his eyes and picked up his phone.

{ _ Ooh, nice.  Make the reader think something exciting is going to happen.  That’s just Wade’s text message alert. _ }

[ _ It’s Spidey!  Maybe something exciting IS going to happen! _ ]

And it was, really, truly, Peter texting him back.  Wade straightened up to get a better look at the picture on his phone as the sun faded behind him.  It was a classic, one eye squinted, tongue out, “I’m not taking myself or you seriously” face -- something Wade could certainly identify with -- but there was something oddly tantalizing about the photo.  Peter’s brown hair was stuck up in just such a way that made Wade tingle in all the right places. But it was the fact that his collarbones were showing against pale shoulders -- he was shirtless -- and that there were little pinkish kisses fading along his neck and around the edges of his hair that really made Wade feel hot.  Peter had been doing something right before taking this photo. And something told him that it wasn’t exercising.

“Oh fuck, that’s the ticket,” he cursed under his breath, bringing the phone screen an inch away from his nose, as if he could drink in Peter’s scent through the phone.  “You fucking tease, Spidey.”

If Peter had just taken this photo now -- and he imagined that he did, considering that the relative lighting in the room seemed to match the twilight outside -- that meant that Petey had probably just jacked himself off.

Wade was getting hard in his suit just thinking about it.

{ _ Let’s go to Peter’s house.  Please?? _ } Yellow whined.

[ _ We already tormented the kid for days.  He was probably happy to have a little bit of time to pleasure himself, without our disgusting-looking dick getting in the way. _ ]

“Shut up, both of you,” Wade grunted, his palm already against his stiffening package.  If Spidey had just come, there was no use in barging into the kid’s room anyway. He’d probably be spent.  Wade could just rub one out on the rooftop, staring at Peter’s sexed-up face in the photo.

{ _ But he’s got a HEALING factor, _ } Yellow complained.  { _ He could probably be ready to go in like ten minutes!  He never even shot blanks when we were with him! _ }

[ _ He was in heat, you idiot. _ ]

{ _ Still!  He’s an eighteen-year-old kid.  When we were eighteen, we were ready to go at a moment’s notice. _ }

Wade sucked in a breath of the cool Queens air.  It smelled like exhaust, melted snow, and sweat. Well, the last one was probably Wade’s mask.

He could just go to Spidey’s room right now.  After all, it was a Friday night, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like the kid had school in the morning.

Plus, Spidey had stayed out late on many a school night.  Wade could remember dozens of times over the last several years when he’d run into Spider-Man, all suited up and out on patrol, as late as 1:00 in the morning, even in the middle of the week.  For a while, Spidey had even seemed like he was purposely coming out to meet up with Deadpool. He’d show up on a rooftop near Deadpool’s stomping grounds, ridiculously close to Weasel’s bar. How Spidey had figured out where Weasel’s bar was, he wasn’t sure.  Maybe the kid hadn’t. Maybe it was all a fluke. Or…

{ _ Or maybe Spidey was chasing our ass, hmm?  You never fucking know. _ }

Wade looked down at the face on the phone screen.  Peter looked so fucking good that it almost hurt. With conviction welling up in his chest, he turned the screen off and stood up, his suit uncomfortably confining his swollen dick.

“All right.  Let’s go find Spidey.”

~~~~

 

By the time that Deadpool finally got to the part of Queens were Peter lived, it was thoroughly nighttime.  He didn’t have the swinging route that he supposed Peter took to get around the city. Instead, he had to do everything with a lot of jogging and a bit of inexpert parkour.  So, when he finally scaled the fire escape up past Spidey’s window, he was sweaty and out-of-breath.

[ _ If you’re trying to impress the kid, you’re not going in the right direction. _ ]

“He’ll understand, right?” Wade panted, wiping his mask forehead as if it would actually help get rid of the sweat.

[ _ This is a bad idea.  We are doing a bad, bad thing right now. _ ]

{ _ Shut up, Whitey.  Anything that gets our dick wet is a good idea.  Especially if it’s Spidey getting it wet. _ }

[ _ He’s not in heat right now.  He’s not going to be lubricating.  So unless he’s got an unexpected drawer full of lube and dildos that we don’t know about, our dick is not getting wet. _ ]

Wade hadn’t thought about that.  And he knew for a fact that Peter didn’t have any toys OR lube.  He’d definitely snooped around when he was here a week ago.

“Well...maybe we should just go and rub one out on the roof, like I was going to --”

“Deadpool?”

Wade’s attention snapped to the window.  Peter’s pale face was staring at him from the other side, a look of confusion plastered across it.  “Oh. Hey, Petey.”

Peter was fully dressed (damnit), but his hair was still stuck up in a delicious way.  He looked around behind him, as if he was making sure his aunt wasn’t standing over his shoulder.  Then he dug his fingers under the rim of the window and slowly slid it open. The pane moved smoothly, probably from years of sliding open and closed every single night.

“What’re you...what’re you doing out here?”

The boxes were yelling their opposing sides in Wade’s head -- Yellow wanted to grab Peter by the shirt, lift him out of the room, and fuck him on the fire escape, while White was taking a decidedly more hands-off approach along the lines of [ _ run away now _ ] -- but Wade ignored them and simply leaned back against the railing, trying to look cool.  “Oh, you know, it’s a beautiful night, and you have a…” he hesitated, trying not to come on too strong, “...beautiful apartment building.”

Peter cocked that adorably messed-up eyebrow and stepped to the side.  “Well, come in, I guess…I don’t want you standing out there getting cold.”

Yellow started flipping a shit.  Wade tuned him out some more.

“So is that aunt that Iron Butt is crushing on home?” Wade said conversationally as he slid in through the window feet-first.  Peter folded his arms and looked towards the door.

“Yeah, but she just worked a hard shift at the hospital.  She’s completely passed out in front of the TV.”

“So we’ve got two superheroes living here in this unassuming apartment in Forest Hills.”

Wade was pleasantly surprised to see Peter’s small smile at that comment.  But a moment later the kid turned away and sat bouncily on his lower bunk, which was strewn with papers and books.  “So what are you really doing here?”

Wade shrugged.  “Just coming to see if you wanted a little company.  It’s a Friday night. Boys like you ought to be having some fun.”

Peter laughed out loud.  “Right. Well, boys like me have homework these days, Deadpool.  You see all this shit?” he said, gesturing around at the nest of work.  “All due Monday.”

“That’s what Sunday night is for, Petey-pie.”

Wade’s eyes chased the delicious blush that raced up Peter’s cheeks at the affectionate nickname.

Peter cleared his throat.  “Well, that won’t work this weekend.  We’ve got a mission. I’m going to be gone both days.”

Disappointment prickled Wade’s stomach.  Fuck. He’d forgotten about the whole reason why Stark had been so eager to get the kid’s heat over and done with.  They were going off to save the world, and they needed Spider-Man to help. Of course. “Where’s that going to be?”

“Canada.”

{ _ WHAT?! _ }

Wade’s jaw dropped inside his mask.  “Canada?! Ooh, baby boy, Canada is like my favorite damn place in the world.”  He fell to his knees as cartoonishly as possible and held his hands up in front of Peter like a prayer.  “Can’t I come along? Please, please, pretty please?”

Peter looked at a loss for words.  “Uh...I mean…”

“You’re right.  I normally have a sworn aversion to spending time with the Avengers.  But I am an adult, so I can do what I want and change my mind when I want.”

The kid on the bed chewed his lip, turning his pout pink and plump.  Oh fuck, that went straight to Wade’s dick.

“I don’t have any issue with you coming, Wade -- ” Peter started.

“-- Well that’s good, baby boy, because I come every time,” Wade interrupted with a wink.

It took Peter a second, but the burst of laughter that came out of the eighteen-year-old was delicious and innocent and holy fucksicles Wade wanted to do Petey right here and now.

{ _ Well, we should.  No time like the present. _ }

That was true.  Especially since he was hard again.

“Speaking of coming, baby boy,” Wade said slowly, dropping his voice an octave, “I noticed something pretty nice in that photo you sent me.”

The laughter seemed to die on Peter’s lips.  Instead, that blush that had risen in his cheeks not minutes before was darkening down his neck.  His eyes were wide. “I...uh...what?”

Deadpool slowly moved closer to Peter, still on his knees, closing the space between them.  “You know, the one you just sent less than an hour ago. The one with you making a great expression on that delicious face of yours.”

Wade loved seeing Peter’s body language change.  The kid had gone from comfortable to nervous immediately, like flipping a switch.  All the same, he could see the way that Peter was already leaning back very slightly, and it wasn’t to get away from Wade.  It was more of a submissive position, just the hint of one. No matter how strong he was, Peter was an Omega biologically. Habits die hard.

“Wade, what are you doing?” Peter breathed, his voice quiet and anxious.

But Wade was already less than a foot away from Peter, positioned in the space between the kid’s knees.  “What if we had a nice moment, Petey? What if I wanted to make you feel good, no heat required?” Wade didn’t miss the tremor that went through the kid’s thighs.

“I don’t...I don’t…”

“You don’t what, Petey?”  Wade looked up at Peter’s face, but the teenager was averting his eyes just slightly.  Not only that, but his chin was tilted back just so, exposing just a little more of his throat.

{ _ Oh God, look at Petey being all submissive with us, _ } Yellow crooned.

[ _ He’s not doing it very well.  Maybe it doesn’t come very naturally to him. _ ]

That was true, to a degree.  As much as Peter’s body language was just bordering on submitting to the big Alpha’s demands, he actually was keeping himself fairly composed.  Wade swallowed just a little bit of disappointment. Part of him wanted Peter to beg and moan like he had in heat.

But on the other hand, the fact that Peter  _ wasn’t _ doing all those things was also insanely hot.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” the teenager said quickly, and he swung one leg over Wade’s head so that he could stand up.  Wade turned around, still on his knees, and watched Peter walk to the other side of the room.

“Why would it be a bad idea?”  Peter didn’t say anything. “If you can give me three good reasons why it’s a bad idea, baby boy, then we won’t.”

Peter still didn’t look at him.  With a little bit of hope, Wade wondered if the kid was turned away because he had a boner.  “I’ve got a mission tomorrow and I want to be at the top of my game.”

“The night is young, Spidey, and you’ve got a healing factor.”

There was silence.  Then: “My aunt is in the other room.”

“You said yourself she was comatose, baby boy.  Plus, I’ll make sure you don’t make too many obscene noises.”

Peter looked over his shoulder, the conviction in his voice coming undone.  “I’m not going to be the same as I was during the heat. I...I won’t have slick, and…”

“Baby boy, I don’t need to fuck you to make you feel good.  Plus, you being a little more in your head is actually going to be hot.  Now, that was three reasons, and none of them were that good.” Wade stood up and moved behind Peter, not touching him, but letting Peter feel how close he was behind him.  “You got anything else to say?” he murmured into the kid’s ear.

Peter shivered in front of him.  “I...I’m a little nervous, if I gotta be honest.”

“You’ve got the reins, baby boy.  You still got that safeword in your back pocket.  Now, do you want to do this? Because I didn’t want to coerce you then and I don’t want to coerce you now.”

For a moment, the kid didn’t say anything, and Wade felt a mountain of disappointment settling into his stomach.  Fuck.

[ _ I fucking warned you both that this was going to happen. _ ]

{ _ You don’t have to be an absolute whore about it though.  Jesus fucking Christ. _ }

[ _ Maybe you should listen to me the first time.  Then you’d see that I’m right --  _ ]

“Okay,” Peter breathed.

[ _ What. _ ]

{ _ HA.  SUCK MY DICK, WHITEY. _ }

Wade stared down at the back of Peter’s head.  “What?” he said stupidly.

Peter turned around, his eyes wide.  “Okay, just...just give me a second.”

{ _ Anybody want to go play the lottery after this?  Because I have a feeling we’d win. _ }

Wade watched as Peter went to his backpack and rummaged around in it for a second before straightening back up.  He looked exactly the same, except that now there were two dark bracelet-type contraptions covering both of his wrists.  Did Peter just put on his web-shooters?

{ _ Holy fuck it’s about to get kinky! _ }

“What are you planning to do with those, baby boy?” Wade asked lowly.

“I don’t know yet,” Peter whispered, and the wideness of his eyes made it all seem sincere.

“Oh hell yeah.”  Wade closed the distance between them in two steps and pressed his masked lips to Peter’s face.

  
  


____ PETER

 

Kissing Deadpool’s mask was like kissing a leather glove that had been doused in sweat, blood, and taco meat, and barely rinsed out.

Peter closed his eyes against the sensation as the mercenary rubbed his mask all over Peter’s face.  “What -- ” Peter spluttered. “Take off your mask, dude.”

“Mmm,” Deadpool hummed as he reached for the bottom of his mask and began rolling it up, “that’s why I like you, Petey.  You’re full of great ideas.”

Deadpool’s lips were much better.

It honestly wasn’t going to take much making out to get Peter riled up, not with his cock already going half-hard in his jeans just with Deadpool’s low voice and his advances.  It barely felt like he had jerked off an hour before; he could have been holding it in for a week. 

The only thing that kept Peter from getting really excited right away was that he had no clue what to do.  Not a freaking clue.

In his heat, he hadn’t thought about a single thing.  Everything had been desperate, and Peter had been nearly out of his mind with the pheromones and the pain and the emptiness.  But now, he was in his right mind, and he was just standing there, hands hanging limply at his sides, while Deadpool’s lips worked Peter’s.  He wasn’t even sure how to kiss properly.

Maybe Wade knew it, because after a moment of the older man trying to kiss Peter with hardly any feedback, he withdrew slightly and brought one hand up under Peter’s chin.  “Everything okay?”

He could feel the color rising in his cheeks as he stared up into the unnerving white eyes of the mask.  “Yeah, I just...um…” He looked away, focusing on a sock on the floor rather than at Deadpool’s face. “I...don’t have a lot of...experience.”

Wade shivered in front of him.  “Oh baby, you don’t know how hot that is when you say it.”

Peter blinked.  “What? That I don’t have experience?”

Wade smiled, revealing white teeth under the scarred lips.  “Music to my avocado ears, Petey. This is like getting to deflower you twice.”  His voice dropped low again. “Do you want me to take control?”

Peter’s heart was pounding in his chest, especially at the way Wade’s voice had deepened dangerously.  “Maybe...maybe just this once,” he breathed.

“Oh, you got it, baby boy.”

Suddenly, the mercenary was on his knees again.

Peter looked down for only a half-second before his eyes shot to something -- anything -- in the room they could lock onto.  He stared down the clock on the opposite wall, the one that was ticking away slowly, not even coming close to the heartbeat that was galloping away in his chest.

He could feel Deadpool undoing his jeans deftly, and before the clock had ticked five seconds, Peter’s fly was wide open and his boxers were shoved down under his dick.  He wasn’t quite hard yet, but he was getting there pretty fast now.

When the sensation of Wade’s breath ghosted over the hair at the base of his cock, Peter’s teeth dug into his lip in anticipation.

“Oh, Petey, you look just as gorgeous as you did in heat,” Wade murmured.  “But you smell a little different. Regular Petey smells a little more dangerous than in-heat Petey.”

“D-Dangerous?” Peter managed, still staring down the clock.  It had been fifteen seconds now.

“Yeah, like you could kick my ass a hundred different ways and not break a sweat.  Like you could barely twitch a muscle and shatter bullet-proof glass. Like you’ve got a mean streak in you, baby boy, all coiled up nice and tight in those powers of yours.”

Wade’s breath against Peter was tantalizing.  He tried not to let his hips betray how much he wanted this.

“Look at me, Peter.”

The use of his full name snapped Peter’s attention away from the clock.  He dropped his head to look at Wade. And the mercenary was looking back up at him, the mask somehow off entirely now, revealing soft brown eyes and that rough skin.  

Then Wade’s lips sank onto Peter’s cock.

It was obscene, watching his own dick disappear into Wade’s mouth; the sight combined with the sensation brought a rush of heat straight to Peter’s groin.  If he hadn’t been quite 100% hard yet, he was now. His muscles all contracted with the overwhelming sensation of warm tongue and the velvety insides of Wade’s cheeks; Peter struggled not to bend double and his hand found Wade’s shoulder for support.  “Oh fuck, Wade. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh  _ fuck _ …”

The mercenary gave an appreciative swirl of his tongue under the sensitive nerves near the tip of Peter’s cock, and Peter felt sparks fly up his spine.  This was incredible. This was real. For a moment, everything else was gone -- the whole memory of Peter’s heat seemed to fade away, and this felt like the first time Peter had ever been touched intimately.  Then, he had been a leaking, sobbing mess, and now, he was Peter. Being worshipped by a man on his knees.

And it really did seem like Deadpool was worshipping Peter.  The gloved hands kissed along the backs of Peter’s thighs until his ass was being firmly held and he was being pressed forward, into the mercenary’s mouth, not allowing him to buck too hard or back away.  He wasn’t simply being held, though -- the hands seemed to relish even touching him, even having the flesh of Peter’s ass in their grasp. Wade’s palms began massaging Peter’s ass and thighs through his jeans; the assault was beginning to compromise the integrity of Peter’s muscles.  He could feel a weak trembling starting in his lower half as Wade’s lips brushed against his pubic hair. God, his tip was touching  _ the back of Wade’s throat _ .

Although Wade was supporting a bit of Peter’s weight, there was nothing else to hold onto, besides the mercenary himself.  And Peter did keep his right hand clutching the shoulder of the suit while Wade held Peter in his mouth. But it wasn’t enough, and Peter had put on his web-shooters for a reason…

He reached his left hand straight overhead, double-tapped the button against his palm with his middle and ring fingers, and caught the jet of web that propelled out of his wrist and stuck fast to the ceiling.

Wade’s tongue stopped moving.  Peter looked down to see what was wrong, but those brown eyes were wide at the sight of Peter clinging to his own webbing just to stay upright.  Something that looked horribly like mischief flickered across Deadpool’s face. Then, before Peter could say anything, Wade growled against the tip of Peter’s cock and began sliding back and forth on the shaft, and Peter lost his breath.  He couldn’t help but buck his hips in time with the motions, and it was almost like he had some control, for a moment. Almost.

But then Deadpool was going at a constant, tantalizing, mind-wrecking pace, and Peter just wanted to go faster and faster.  He’d never had a mouth on his dick before, and it was unbearable not to be able to chase his orgasm, like the way he could simply beat it out of himself when he was alone….

Deadpool growled again, but this time it was a controlling growl, a chastising growl.  The mercenary’s hands moved to grip Peter’s hips and stilled them. Wade was strong enough that Peter couldn’t move without tapping into his super strength.  As much as he wanted to, he closed his eyes and tried to master himself. The pressure at his pelvis had already been building, though, and he couldn’t help but plead.

“Come  _ on _ , Wade,” Peter whined, squeezing the man’s muscled shoulder through the leathery fabric of the suit.  “Don’t stop now.”

But Wade’s lips were already withdrawing from Peter’s wildly hard shaft, popping off the head with an obscenely sloppy sound.  “You’re being pretty impatient, baby boy. I thought you were going to let me do the work?”

Although he was throbbing with desire, and his legs were still shaking, Peter started to find his footing again now that the stimulation on his cock had stopped.  He straightened up slightly, letting go of Wade’s shoulder, and tried to feel a little more dignified. It was difficult when he felt such a juvenile  _ want _ throughout him.  “You were going so slowly, though,” he huffed.  

There was definitely a smile playing on Deadpool’s unmasked, scarred lips.  The man ran his hands up and down the backs of Peter’s thighs, dragging the rough denim across sensitive skin.  “Taking time is half the fun, Petey.”

Peter closed his eyes again and breathed out hard through his nose.  “Honestly, I don’t give a fuck at the moment. I just want to -- ”

A hot leather glove was over Peter’s mouth before he could finish his sentence.  “You just want to fuck my mouth, don’t you?” Wade murmured, his breath suddenly on Peter’s ear, voice low and dark.  That voice did things to Peter; he didn’t think his dick could get any more heavy and aching, at least not when he wasn’t in heat.  He could only get out a slightly muffled  _ hmm _ in response.

“I’ll make a deal with you, Spider-Man,” Wade whispered.  “I’ll take you hard and fast in my mouth. I’ll let you come down my throat.”  Lips brushed Peter’s ear. “But only if you do something for me.”

Peter tried to answer, tried to ask exactly what he’d be expected to do, but Wade’s hand was still over his mouth.  And, although he technically had a free hand -- the other was still suspended a little above his head, clinging to the thin, taut line of webbing that was stretching down from his ceiling -- it didn’t even cross his mind that he could forcefully remove Wade’s hand from covering his mouth.  Not much was crossing his mind at all.

“I want you upside-down,” Wade began, and a tremor of excitement was lacing underneath his voice.  “I want you to hold that web with your feet, and hang here for me, hands-free. Can you do that for me, Spidey?”

Peter’s whole body was his answer; he felt his cock throb and jump, his hips bucked forward helplessly, and the shudder that went through him would have been visible from across the room.  But it was the moan that somehow came from deep in his chest, vibrating under Wade’s gloved hand, that was the ticket. 

Peter’s reaction must have only excited Wade more, because the man was now palming himself through his suit.  “God, you’re fucking beautiful,” the mercenary breathed. “I can’t wait to feel your gorgeous little breaths right next to my dick.  Are you ready?” Peter managed a nod. “Do you need help getting up there?”

Peter shook his head.  Even though every muscle in his body was trembling with arousal, this was easy.  This was something he could do in his sleep, or -- as it had happened before -- when he was surprised or startled.  He bent his knees for a moment, reminding his body where it was and what it was about to do, and then, in one fluid motion, he pushed off the ground, tilted his torso down toward the floor, and swung his legs up and over himself until his feet were even with the hanging web silk.  It took him a millisecond to be dangling by his feet from the webbing; but he couldn’t quite release his hands yet. Not because he physically couldn’t -- he’d learned how to pass his silk, his lifeline, between his hands and feet in an instant -- but because letting go felt entirely vulnerable, entirely submissive, and with his heart pounding in his chest, he couldn’t help but hesitate.

Deadpool (Peter kept switching between thinking of him as  _ Deadpool _ and as  _ Wade _ , especially when it was Wade’s face exposed, but Deadpool’s uniform molding around the rest of the man’s body) moved to stand directly in front of Peter.  From his curled position, still clutching the bundle of threads between his hands, Peter’s eye-level was still around Deadpool’s ribcage. He raised his chin so he could try to see the man’s face, but Deadpool wasn’t looking at Peter’s eyes.  Probably because Peter still had his dick out, now reaching toward his belly button, falling directly between Peter’s forearms as he clung to the webbing.

Deadpool stepped into Peter’s space, but didn’t touch Peter where he wanted to be touched.  Instead, he felt hands run down his sides, up to his knees, along his muscles, which were still trembling a little but holding him in place easily.  Then the hands moved to Peter’s arms, running fiery lines of contact down from his wrists to his biceps. “Let go, Petey. I know you can.”

Peter almost never felt like blood was rushing to his head, no matter how long he’d been upside-down.  It was one of the perks of having radioactive blood, maybe, or perhaps he just spent so much time with his head closer to the earth than his feet, that he didn’t notice it.  But now, as he slowly lessened his grip on the webbing and allowed his arms to fall down toward the floor, he felt a distinct  _ thump thump thump _ of his own heartbeat in his ears.  Without being curled up to hold the webbing, his face was even with Deadpool’s hips, and his fingertips were nearly brushing the carpet.  His position pushed his ribs out toward Wade, and everything, including his cock, felt terrifyingly exposed. Peter swallowed hard and tried to suppress the mild panic in his chest.

“Breathe, Spidey, breathe,” Wade mouthed into Peter’s hipbone.  But Peter couldn’t imagine getting his breaths under control at the moment.  Not when Wade was right there, not when Peter’s nose was two inches away from the obvious bulge in the man’s suit; a drop of pre-cum fell from the tip of Peter’s cock, between their two bodies, down to the floor.

Then Wade was on him again.

Just as promised, the assault was brutal.  Peter had never consciously felt so...so  _ much _ at one time.  He supposed that some of the sex had been just as intense during his heat, but now he was entirely there, and this was happening, and...Peter choked out a labored sigh.  Hands were on his ass, pressing him forward into the mercenary’s mouth, which was ceaselessly bobbing back and forth. And, again, like Wade had promised, he was picking up the pace little by little.

Even though Peter had just had a decent orgasm not more than an hour before, his super strength and healing factor -- plus the fact that he was eighteen -- made it easy to come pretty frequently.  But even he noticed that they could decrease in intensity if they were close together. Now, though, as Wade essentially fucked his own mouth with Peter’s cock, he could feel every muscle in his body tightening.  He couldn’t help fisting his fingers, and he willed his feet not to let go of the webbing. His balls, heavy on top of his cock because of his position, were starting to ache with the impending orgasm. 

Oh God, he was going to come hard, and he was going to do it straight into Wade’s mouth.

“Wade, Wade…” Peter panted valiantly, trying to give some warning.  In a moment, there would be no avoiding it -- Wade was dragging him at a full sprint toward the barrier between composure and coming undone.  “W-Wade, if you don’t...I’m going to…”

Wade dug the leather tips of his gloves hard into Peter’s lower back and pulled their bodies flush.  Peter’s face pressed against the throbbing package concealed under Wade’s suit. He closed his eyes, and following a strange urge that suddenly rushed forward in his chest, Peter mouthed the shape of Wade’s cock, then lightly bit down.

The growl that came out of the mercenary’s chest vibrated in Peter’s lower belly and around his dick.  And the ceiling that Peter had been racing toward, the incredible pressure that had built in his body, had coiled behind his cock, started to break.  He couldn’t stop it now. “WADE.” The mercenary’s name was forced from Peter like it was the only thing that could save him.

Peter’s orgasm hit a second later.  He convulsed upward, mouth gaping open, though his breath was stopped somewhere in his throat.  Wade’s hot mouth was still around his pulsing cock, and Peter could feel the man swallowing his cum as it leaked out of him.  Wade’s calves, which Peter had grabbed the moment his muscles contracted, were the only thing grounding Peter to reality. 

It was brilliant insight on Wade’s part that the mercenary immediately wrapped both arms around Peter’s torso, because after the fifth or sixth wave of bliss, Peter’s whole body started to go weak.  The webbing slipped out from between the soles of his feet and suddenly Wade was supporting all of Peter’s weight; Peter’s grip on Wade’s calves was useless now. 

Slowly, almost excruciatingly, Wade released Peter’s cock from his mouth, licking the tip for good measure.  In an awkward shuffle, he carried Peter over to the bunk bed, bent over, and carefully deposited Peter limply over the mattress, clearing away books and papers as he arranged Peter’s limbs comfortably on the sheets.  Peter opened his eyes weakly, still panting, and looked over at Wade. The man looked enamored.

“Damn.”

Wade’s scarred lips split into a grin.  “I have to admit, that was a pretty kinky first-time blowjob.”

“You mean you don’t normally get people to hang from the ceiling by a bit of webbing?” Peter managed, throwing his arm over his eyes.  He could now feel embarrassment rushing into his cheeks; the last thing he wanted was Deadpool to see it. With his other hand he hastily pulled his boxers up over his still-exposed dick.

“Believe it or not, that was a new kind of experience.”  Wade’s voice went lower. “I’d love to try it again sometime.”

Peter pulled in a breath and moved his arm slightly so he could look at the mercenary again.  “Did you even come, though?”

Wade’s eyes widened slightly.  “Baby boy, I was staving off my orgasm the whole time.  I came in my suit the second you bit me.”

Peter let his arm flop back down in surprise.  He had nothing to say to that. It seemed crazy that Deadpool could finish when he was basically untouched; maybe the suit had been creating friction?  For a moment, Peter just gaped at him, then he found his voice. “But...you seemed to last longer during my heat, and you were  _ in _ me.”

Wade pressed his lips together and leaned into the iron frame of the top bunk bed.  “Petey, you being in heat is hot, don’t get me wrong. I truly enjoyed you begging for me.  But you, this part of you, the fact that you didn’t NEED to do it...it was so, so good.” He paused.  “And the fact that you still kind of begged even though you’re not in heat is even better.”

Peter couldn’t help but laugh.  “Well, yeah...it’s just me being a horny teenager I guess…”

“Oh, baby boy, you’re so much more than that.”

Peter blinked, at a loss for words again, until Deadpool suddenly pushed Peter over and climbed into the bed beside him.  One of his katana handles nearly poked Peter in the eye, and his dirty boots were horribly close to Peter’s pillow, but Peter was so overwhelmed by the mercenary getting into bed with him again that he didn’t say anything.  “So, what time are we heading out for the mission?”

“We?”

“Yeah, baby boy, you’re going to Canada to fight some baddies.  I want in.” While Peter was still working out what to say, Deadpool turned to his shoulder and Peter vaguely heard something about “I know what I said” and “Avengers.”

“Well, I guess I should ask Mr. Stark…”

Deadpool waved his hand dismissively.  “Nah. Let’s surprise them.”

“Um.  Okay.”

“So what time are you leaving in the morning?”

“Probably around seven.”

“Great.  I’ll meet you here then.”

Peter frowned.  “Meet me here? You’re not…” Peter suddenly felt very foolish, “...you’re not staying over?”

A small smile flickered over Wade’s expression before he shook his head.  “I’d love to, baby boy, but I gotta get prepared for a proper mission. I got my katanas to sharpen and my guns to load up.”

“Oh.”

For a moment, they both just lied on Peter’s bed silently, as Peter felt his heartbeat come back into a normal range.  

Then Wade spoke quietly.  “I’ll stay here until you fall asleep, though.”

Peter turned to look directly at Wade’s eyes, which were brown and deep and sincere.  “Okay.”

When Peter woke up, still in his clothes with his jeans still undone, to the sound of Aunt May turning off the television and going to bed, the clock on the bedside stand read 2:06 am.  Deadpool was gone, but the dent of his body was obvious on the mattress. Peter couldn’t help but roll over into it. He buried his face in his arm when he realized it was still warm.


	10. He'd Fallen Farther Than This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everybody!  
> A few things before you get into this chapter. 1) Things aren't really better on the wrist front, so I'm still trying to take things slowly. Hopefully I'll be updating every week, but if I'm a few days behind, it's because I had to take a day or two to rest it. 2) I had the weird desire to write an Mpreg one-shot earlier this week, so if you haven't checked that out yet, it's linked as "part 2" of this series. 3) I'm not super great at writing missions, because action is hard for me to put to paper. But I still hope you guys enjoy this one.

___ PETER

 

“I’m sorry, what the fuck is going on here?”

Tony Stark was standing on the tarmac, arms folded over the glowing inverted triangle on his chest.  Peter knew that the reactor there no longer kept shrapnel out of the billionaire’s heart like it used to; this one was the center of Mr. Stark’s Bleeding Edge armor tech.  He’d seen it in action at least a handful of times now. The rest of the man’s apparel wasn’t much -- a tracksuit and running shoes -- but Tony could have been wearing a trash bag and still garnered the same amount of respect.  

He certainly had Peter’s voice shaking, despite the track suit and all.

“Uh, I...well, you see, Mr. S-Stark…”

Deadpool, who had been standing in an uncharacteristic amount of silence next to Peter, finally piped in.  “I’m coming on the mission, Stark! No need to thank me.”

Mr. Stark looked around in mock innocence.  “Oh yeah, sure, let me just ask the boss...oh wait.”  He leaned forward to punctuate his words. “That’s me.  And you’re not coming.”

“I thought Cap was the boss?” Wade mused loudly.

“You are doubly not coming.”

“Wade, stop,” Peter mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose to hide how red his face was getting.  He should have known that this would be a bust. It was a secret mission, after all. And sure, Deadpool knew about it because he’d been responsible for getting Peter through his heat in order to be in the right state for all the heroics.  But letting him tag along had been a mistake, as much as Peter secretly wanted the mercenary to be there. Somehow he felt safer, thinking that Wade would be behind him. Maybe it just wasn’t his call.

Deadpool put on a face of false anguish.  “Come on, Petey, don’t be like that. Iron Ass and I will work things out.  Everything’s going to be great. It’s going to be like Full House on that jet.  Especially since Elizabeth Olsen WON’T be there.”

The fury in Mr. Stark’s cool expression did not escape Peter, and he immediately tried to backpedal further to alleviate what looked like Airport Battle Number 2 coming on.  “Look, Wade, Mr. Stark probably has a plan -- ”

“I most definitely have a plan,” Tony interrupted.

“--and maybe you coming along would interfere -- ”

“You know, the kid is making  _ excellent _ points.  I take credit for how far he’s come, in the last three years.  He had some major screw-ups before I set him straight,” Mr. Stark was saying to no one in particular, yet he was waving about like he was addressing an imaginary crowd.  Peter dropped his argument, more embarrassment flushing into his neck and ears. If Mr. Stark was going to be like that, he didn’t need to add his input.

“Well, you are right with one thing: Petey is smart, and he  _ always _ makes excellent points.  But I think that in this case, you’re both just going to have to deal with me coming along anyway.”

“I’m sorry, what?”  Mr. Stark cupped his ear mockingly.  “Because I think you just said --”

“--that I’ve got the Montréal/Aéroparc Île Perrot air traffic controller’s balls in my pocket, and he won’t let you land unless I’m on that jet you’re taking?”

Both Peter and Tony Stark’s faces whipped to stare at Deadpool.  Had Wade really just said what Peter  _ thought _ he just said?

Nobody managed a word for a staggeringly long time, but Mr. Stark was the first to speak.  “Are you telling me that you’ve compromised our mission?”

Wade shook his head and put his hands up innocently.  “Not at all. Just that the air traffic controller scheduled to be maintaining the landing strip you’re aiming for at the airport you’re trying to land at owes me a considerable chunk of change.”  He shrugged. “I mean, if it weren’t for me, he could be dead. I could literally be carrying his balls in my pocket right now. I meant it as an expression the first time...if that wasn’t clear.”

Tony Stark, face white with anger, took several steps toward Peter and Wade, and while Peter stumbled back, Wade stood his ground.

“Listen up, assface.  I’ve let you in on some pretty important things lately, concerning some pretty important people.”  Tony took a deep breath, and Peter could tell that the billionaire was trying not to look in his direction.  “But you’re playing with stuff that is not yours to mess with, okay? Once you compromise an Avengers mission, you’re on the shit list.”

Wade extended a hand to rest on Tony’s shoulder, but the billionaire knocked his arm out of the way.  Deadpool settled for an open gesture. “Tony, baby, I didn’t compromise anything. The mission is on. Everything’s cool, as long as I’m on that flying hunk of pop can that you call a jet.  I promise I won’t mess up anything. I’ll just watch.”

Mr. Stark sneered.  “You’ll ‘just watch’?”

“Spidey’s ass is my favorite spectator sport.”

If Peter could have turned to ash on the spot, he would have.

Mr. Stark seemed to be experiencing Peter’s very sentiment in his own head.  But just when Peter thought that Tony was going to punch them both, the billionaire instead threw his hands up in the air and turned away from them to stride toward the jet.  “You know what? You can fucking come. But,” Mr. Stark added, as he reached the first step going up into the cabin, “if you fuck so much as one, tiny thing up, I will personally see to it that you’re cut into microscopic pieces and sent to every corner of the globe so that if you ever manage to regenerate back together, I’ll already be dead and won’t have to witness it.”  He turned back up the steps, just as coolly as ever, and disappeared into the plane.

Peter felt a hand on his shoulder.  He turned to look dumbly at Wade. “What just happened?”

Wade was clearly grinning, even through his leather mask.  “I just got in on the mission, baby boy!”

“I think those were the five most embarrassing moments of my entire existence.”

“You’ve had a boring life, Petey.”  The hand on his shoulder exerted some force and started steering Peter towards the jet.  “Now it’s all-aboard the hero plane. Next stop, the most beautiful country in the world.”

 

~~~~

 

The jet was fast, but they still had an awkward forty-five minutes of flight to sit through after the horrible encounter on the tarmac back in New York.  Peter was sitting in a jump-seat facing sideways behind the cockpit, strapped in tightly, although he seemed to be the only one who was following general jet safety.  He couldn’t help but be a little nervous; he’d only been on a plane a handful of times ever. Natasha, otherwise known as Black Widow, was in the pilot’s seat, although Peter was pretty sure she was allowing the jet to run on autopilot.  Meanwhile, Mr. Stark had taken up the copilot seat, and Peter was stuck sitting awkwardly across from Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes (whom he’d met at the battle in Germany back when the Sokovia Accords were a thing) and Dr. Bruce Banner (one of his biggest science idols, who also could turn into a “big green rage monster,” as Mr. Stark put it once).  Peter might not have felt quite so lame if Deadpool wasn’t sitting next to him, talking quietly to his katana like a crazy person. He wasn’t sure why Wade was putting on such a strange act, but at least the constant murmuring next to him gave him something to listen to other than the roar of the jet engine.

In hindsight, it was a little easier to see why they needed Peter.  Even though he knew that Mr. Stark, Rhodey, and Black Widow were definitely a formidable team, they seemed a little short-handed.  He didn’t know where Captain America was, and he didn’t want to ask. It was likely that the guy with the carbon-fiber wings and the Scarlet Witch lady were probably with Cap.  As for some of the other people who had been at the battle in Germany -- the dude with arrows, the red flying robot man, the King of Wakanda, the guy who got really tiny and then really big -- Peter really had no clue where they were or what they were doing.  And Thor was probably in another dimension or something. Did superheroes have side jobs? Peter had literally never seen them all in one place.

Certainly Dr. Banner had a side job, at least.  Rather than socialize, the man was thumbing through a book on molecular physics, his thin glasses having slid all the way down to the end of his nose.  Peter’s interest was piqued by the subject matter, but he didn’t think he could manage to say much, not when his stomach was on edge already from the turbulence.  At least, he was pretty sure it was from the turbulence -- he had just taken his first Phase 1 heat regulator pill that morning. But something told him that the medication was largely operating without any negative side effects, for once.

They bounced over a particularly rough patch of air and Peter’s stomach turned unpleasantly.  Yep, the nausea was  _ definitely _ from the aircraft.

About twenty-five minutes into the flight, it seemed like Deadpool’s odd behavior was finally tweaking the other two passengers beyond their patience.  Dr. Banner simply looked disapprovingly over the edge of his glasses at the mercenary, but Colonel Rhodes was a little more vocal. “Dude,” Rhodey burst out, “What are you even doing right now?”

Peter grimaced and shot Deadpool a look out of the side of his eye.   _ Stop being an absolute doofus, _ he tried to say mentally.  If only he had some of Scarlet Witch’s powers.  She was telepathic, right? Or tele...something.  One of those multi-talented types, slightly cooler than being able to climb walls, certainly.

Wade looked up, then sheathed his katana on his back again.  “Ah, forgive me, I was just talking to the soul of my dead husband, which is trapped inside my katana.”

Both Banner and Rhodey looked at Peter, as if to say,  _ Really?  This guy’s with you? _

Wade scoffed.  “What, nobody’s seen Suicide Squad?  Fucking uncultured swine.”

Peter gaped at him.  “Did you just spend the last twenty minutes talking to your katana so you could set up that subpar joke?”

“Subpar, Spidey?  That hurts.”

Suddenly, there was a sound from the cockpit, and Tony made his way into their space.  He looked at Peter like he was going to say something important, but then wrinkled his nose instead.

“Good God, does it smell like something died back here?  I’ve really got to change out those Christmas tree air fresheners.  They just don’t last.”

“You know, now that you mention it, it does smell a little weird back here,” Rhodey said fiercely in Wade’s direction.

Mr. Stark pushed his hair back, looked at Peter again, and then bent down to pick up something that Peter hadn’t even noticed was sitting against the wall of the aircraft.  It was a small silver case. “Well, then, there’s probably no better time to give this to you, Parker. It filters the air, so you can spend as much time with our mercenary friend over here as you want without asphyxiating.”  The case was clearly heavy by the way Mr. Stark staggered it over to Peter’s lap. As soon as it hit Peter’s thighs, however, the case burst open and something flipped out onto his chest.

Although his Spidey sense didn’t fire down his neck, Peter still panicked and thrashed, sending the case flying into Dr. Banner’s arms.  Something metallic was spreading up and over Peter’s chest, under the jumpseat restraints, down his arms and legs, and across his back. It stopped at his neck, just shy of where the fabric of his Spider-Man suit started.

“You remember the Iron Spider, don’t you?” Tony asked, a fondness in his voice that Peter hadn’t heard many times before.

He remembered it.  How could he not? It had looked magnificent on the mannequin at the Avengers facility, when Mr. Stark had asked Peter to join the Avengers.  But Peter had turned him down, and so he hadn’t gotten the suit. Now he almost regretted not having taken it right away. It looked cool as hell on him.

“Here, take off the fabric mask and we’ll keep it safe in the jet during the mission.  Oh yeah, and don’t worry -- both suits are synced to the same server system, so anything you record or whatever in one suit automatically goes to the other.  Your AI is in both of them.” Tony snapped his fingers as he held out his hand, so Peter yanked his mask off his head, very conscious of the fact that it was the first time either Dr. Banner or Rhodey had seen his face.  He tried to keep the blush out of his cheeks as he handed his mask to Mr. Stark. A moment later, the metal suit finished covering him, spreading up under his chin and behind his head and meeting up at his face with a truly impressive display.

**Hello, Peter,** Karen said cheerfully in his ear.  

Peter didn’t answer for fear of seeming off his rocker.  Instead, he simply turned to Deadpool. “How do I look?” he asked weakly.

Even through the thick leather, Peter could see that Wade’s jaw was open.  “Spidey, you look incredible. I bet that metallic ass is fantastic.”

A moment of silence went around the whole jet, seemingly in memoriam of Peter’s dignity.

Tony shook his head and broke the quiet.  “Well, if we’re done with...whatever that was...I have to debrief everybody.  Because this mission isn’t just a go-in-guns-blazing thing. Which is why I truly don’t think you’re going to enjoy this, Deadpool.”  Mr. Stark looked at Wade with the kind of gaze that said,  _ I would very much like to shove you out of this plane without a parachute _ .  “But here you are.  The name of the game today is stealth.  And that’s where Peter is going to come in.”

Peter raised his hand lamely to acknowledge his name, only to immediately set it back down when he was met with incredulous looks.   _ I am a complete and utter idiot. _

“We’ve been surveying this Hydra base for months now.  They’re running some kind of biological weapon program, though we don’t know exactly what their aim is or how large-scale their project is.  What we do know is that it’ll be easier to infiltrate towards the evening. That’s when they have the lightest staff and their day security is getting ready to go home and get replaced by the night guys.  Our goal is to get in and out while we still have the tired day security.”

“Wait, so this building is going to be full of people when we go in?” Dr. Banner said apprehensively.  “Is that a good idea?”

“Well,” Tony reasoned, “the problem is that it’s always full of people, no matter what time of day or night.  So we’re just going off what we have to work with.”

Mr. Stark raised his left hand and tapped his watch.  Suddenly a projection sprang out of the screen, showing a 3D model of what Peter figured was the Hydra base.  It looked massive.

“What we’re dealing with here is a mostly-subterranean operation.  Our main way in is going to be via the roof. Natasha has already set up video feeds so we can redirect their security cameras, and they don’t have a lot of people watching the top floors.  We’re going to go in, cut a small hole in the top of the elevator shaft, and go in that way.

“Now, here’s the catch.  If we operate the elevator, that will tip them off.”  Tony zoomed in on the projection to show the elevator.  “Instead, we’re going to need someone to lower themselves down the elevator shaft.  There’s a small maintenance cavity that runs the entire height of the shaft, just big enough for a slim person, which should keep you out of the path of the elevator.  Unfortunately, there’s no ladder and no place to really attach a rope or grappling device. So, that’s where you come in, Peter.”

Peter swallowed.  “Me?”

“Yes, you.  You can cling to walls and you’re the smallest one here.  So we’re going to send you down the maintenance cavity of the elevator shaft, all the way to the bottom floor.  That’s where they’re running the biological weapon R&D.” Mr. Stark tapped his watch again and made the 3D model disappear.  “Any questions?”

Wade raised his hand next to Peter.  “Yes. How many more times are you going to say the word ‘shaft’?”

Tony glared at the mercenary so hard that Peter could almost feel heat coming off the billionaire’s gaze.  “Any  _ competent _ questions?”

Peter swallowed hard again.  He knew that this was an Avengers mission, but it didn’t seem like anyone else was given any instructions -- just him.  “Um...yeah...what happens when I reach the bottom floor? How do I get out then? Are you guys going to jump in at any point?  What about --”

“Jesus, kid,” Tony interrupted him, “One question at a time.  Look, your main concern is getting down the elevator shaft and waiting for instructions.  If we do this right, we can get in and out without anyone even realizing we were there. Then we can inform the Canadian government of the situation, and hopefully wipe out Hydra from north of the border.”

“Oh.  Um. Okay.”

“Tony,” Natasha’s voice came from the cockpit.  “We’ve got about ten minutes until we arrive at the airport.”

“If Jacques asks for me, I’m happy to take the radio!” Wade sung from his jumpseat, waving his hand obnoxiously.  When his hand came back down, however, it landed on Peter’s knee.

A shiver rattled up Peter’s spine and he felt just a split-second of heat flash over his groin.  He stared at the molecular physics book in Dr. Banner’s hands, trying not to give himself away.

Deadpool’s hand was on Peter’s knee until Natasha, sounding highly annoyed, requested Wade to come to the radio to clear their arrival at the airport.  When the mercenary took his hand off Peter’s new metallic suit, he felt strangely light and heavy at the same time.

 

~~~~

  
  


Peter had seen Tony Stark, James Rhodes, and Natasha Romanov in action before.  But there was something so satisfying about watching them work like a well-oiled machine.  It took under a minute for them to secure the roof of the building while Peter and Deadpool waited on the other side of a line of trees that edged part of the compound.  Dr. Banner was waiting in the car on the road, just twenty feet away, with the flashers on.

It was surely a high-security building, but not as much as Peter had expected on the outside.  Only four of the fourteen floors were visible above ground. Of course, being on the outskirts of Montreal, it would have looked very strange to have a ton of armed guards staking out the top of an otherwise unassuming, four-story building.  Most likely, not very many people were even slightly aware of what was going on below ground.

As soon as the roof was clear, Peter made his way to the building through the unkempt grounds, along the same pathway that he’d seen Natasha take.  It was well-concealed by foliage and tall plants.

“These guys need to do some lawn maintenance,” Peter joked into his intercom.

_ “It’s a good thing they don’t, or I’m sure that guy on the southwest corner would have picked up on me sooner,” _ Natasha quipped into Peter’s -- and everyone else’s -- ear.

_ “All right, Underoos.” _  It was Tony this time.   _ “Scale the building and we’ll get started on this hole.  Once you’re in, we’re going to cover it back up so that if they send anyone else out here, it won’t look different.  You’ll be stuck inside, but just temporarily.” _

“Good thing I’m not TOO claustrophobic.”

_ “Your humor kills me, kid.” _

As Peter neared the edge of the building, he picked up the pace.  Then, about ten feet from the wall, running at full tilt, he shot a web from each wrist, aimed at the edge of the roof.  With one mighty yank, he slingshot himself up the four floors and onto the top of the building. It only took one roll to absorb the shock of the landing, and then he was standing upright a few paces from Natasha and Mr. Stark, who had managed to cut a roughly Peter-sized hole in the roof where he supposed the elevator shaft was.  Rhodey was keeping lookout, but so far there didn’t seem to be any trouble.

“Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, reporting for duty,” Peter blurted, saluting to his forehead before he really thought about how much of a dumbass he probably looked like.

Neither Natasha nor Tony really spared him a glance at first.  Nat was reaching her arm into the hole, shoulder-deep. “Just one second…” she managed, straining as she tried to reach in as far as she could.

Tony turned to Peter now.  “She’s using an old spy trick to disable whatever security systems we couldn’t hack into remotely.  You know, cut the system without making it look cut, that sort of thing.”

“Got it!”  Nat straightened up and pressed a couple buttons on her watch.  “And...there we go. We should be good.”

Peter shifted nervously.  “Should be?” He cursed the fact that his voice sounded just as anxious as he was.

“Barring any catastrophic events, I’d say that we’re in the clear,” Natasha clarified.  “Now get in there so we can cover this hole up.”

Perhaps it was because he was going in alone, or because the hole was barely big enough for him to slip through, or because he really couldn’t see anything inside the hole (how deep did the elevator go, again?), but Peter was starting to regret coming along for the mission.  It didn’t help that the plan, once he got inside, was vague at best.

“Don’t worry, kid.  We’ve got your back.  You’re going to be fine.”

_ “Go kick some Hydra ass, Petey!” _  Deadpool’s voice crackled into Peter’s ear.

Tony’s Iron Man suit jerked in an irritated way, like he was swatting an annoying fly from around his ear.  “Hey. Get the fuck off the intercom, you murderous douche.”

_ “I’m just here for moral support.” _

“All right, FRIDAY, remind me to equip the intercom with more failsafes later,” Tony sighed.  Then he reached out and clapped Peter hard on the back, making the metal of their suits clank together in a disconcerting way.  “Good luck in there, Pete. Let us know if you run into any trouble.”

Peter nodded automatically, his heart thumping hard in his chest.  For a split-second, he considered diving in head-first, but quickly thought better of it.  Instead, he sat on the edge of the hole like he was a small child going down a slide for the first time.  With a surprising amount of his control still coming through the two layers of suit, Peter spider-gripped the roof and carefully lowered himself in until he was holding on by just his fingertips.  As his head went below the edge of the hole, his mask automatically calculated the darkness and brightened up his vision. Suddenly, he could see below him. Fuck. It was a long way down.

_ “Okay, Peter, stick to that maintenance nook.  Don’t tangle with the elevator,” _ Mr. Stark was saying, his voice coming through the intercom more than in person now.  

The maintenance nook was just below him, running the whole length of the elevator shaft, like Mr. Stark had detailed in his exposition of the plan.  It was barely wide enough for a fully-grown man, but Peter was slight enough that it worked for him. He slowly removed one hand from the edge of the roof and gripped the concrete wall of the nook, which stuck out from the side of the elevator shaft as though someone had just cut out a small rectangular prism to run parallel to the elevator.  It was odd that there weren’t any ladder rungs sticking out from the side of the wall to aid people climbing up and down. Maybe Hydra had neglected that to prevent people from doing exactly what Peter was about to do.

As Peter removed his other hand from the roof and gripped the concrete with both hands and feet, the light streaming in from above suddenly cut out.  Nat and Tony were covering up the hole, and Peter was in.

In a Hydra base.  Alone.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself.

**Why are you hesitating?**

Peter nearly shouted in surprise.  “Oh my God, Karen,” he breathed, trying not to be too loud.  “I almost forgot you were in here.”

**I’m in both of your suits.  Do you need some advice on how to get down?**

“No, no, I’m okay.  I’ll just...throw a web up and propel myself down, maybe…”

**I wouldn’t advise that with your current web formula.  It dissolves in two hours, and if anyone were to see webbing remains, you could compromise your mission early.**

“Oh shit, you’re right.  Um...I’ll just climb down, then.”

**Okay.  This building has four above-ground floors and ten subterranean floors.  You have to descend about 150 feet to reach the bottom.**

“Karen, please do not remind me.”

_ “You okay in there, kid?” _ Tony said in his ear.

“Doing great!” Peter managed, trying not to talk too loudly for fear of alerting somebody to his presence.  This was too much. He had to just go.

Carefully, methodically, he began to climb down the wall.  There wasn’t much space side-to-side, but without the elevator being directly level with him, there was plenty of space behind him to accidentally fall, if he wasn’t careful.  At least he could count the number of floors he’d gone by, judging on how many sets of metal doors he passed on the way down. 

Peter had managed to descend five floors before there was a loud sound behind him.  Suddenly, the cables suspending the elevator, which was somewhere below him, began to move.

“Oh, awesome.”

The elevator was rising, coming closer in his night-vision.  It was a harsh reminder that he wasn’t just infiltrating a building -- there were probably hundreds of people inside, going about their daily, evil business.  Peter moved his grip to just his fingertips and toes, tucked his arms in, and flattened himself as much as he could against the concrete. As the elevator rattled up behind him, he could feel it just an inch from his skin.  This was a fucking tight fit.

And, of course, the elevator stopped at whatever floor they were at right now, leaving Peter with his nose flush against the wall, not sure if he could even move properly.  For what seemed like several minutes, he simply clung to the concrete, hoping the elevator would continue on to a different floor, but it didn’t. His breathing seemed very loud.

_ “You okay, Parker?” _

“Absolutely perfect.  It’s just that the elevator is right on me and it’s not giving me a ton of space, here.”

There was a pause on the intercom.  Tony’s voice cut back in, though it was a little hard to hear through the ringing that had started up in his ears.   _ “You have to keep moving, if you can.  Isn’t there any way you can get past it?” _

“Just one, probably.”

_ “We’ve got faith in you, kid.” _

He didn’t know if the reassurance made him feel better or worse.  The sudden desire to hear Deadpool’s voice over the intercom surged into his chest, but he pushed it down -- he’d already stalled enough.  Instead, Peter simply closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath (he felt his shoulder blades nearly touch the side of the lift), and released his grip on the wall.

Like a rock, Peter slipped straight downward, tensing every muscle in his body as he fell past the bottom edge of the elevator.  The empty space of the shaft opened up behind him, and the dense air was suddenly rushing past him, whistling through the metallic panels that made up his suit.  As he caught the air, he couldn’t help but flail, and his streamlined straight fall lost its control. The closed-in sides of the maintenance cavity were no longer right beside him; instead, he had tilted backwards into the main shaft.  A metallic scream filled the space as his left arm flailed against one of the steel cables running down into the darkness, and green glowing sparks flew into view of his night-vision.

**Four floors until impact,** Karen interjected, Tony’s AI so intelligent that it made its warning as concise as possible to give Peter more time to act.  His brain was rushing as loudly as the air around him. At one point, in his early days as Spider-Man, he’d been afraid of heights.  But he’d fallen farther than this since then. Now, he just had to use his instinct.

He wasn’t supposed to use webs, Karen had told him.  But self-preservation kicked in. When the silk caught the concrete wall of the elevator shaft, it jerked Peter’s right arm so hard that it nearly popped out of its socket.  There was no place to swing to in the confined space, no other building to redirect his momentum. Instead, he slammed hard into the concrete wall, dangling by one thread and one hand.

“Ouch.”  He blinked for a moment, trying to reorient himself, and looked down.  The floor of the shaft was about ten feet below him.

**Nice catch, Peter.**  Even Karen sounded relieved.  Peter couldn’t blame her. Rather than jump down, he simply loosened his grip on his spider silk and propelled himself down the last ten feet until he was dangling just over the machinery that operated the elevator cables.  The last set of metal doors, which presumably led out onto the bottom floor of the building, were across the shaft from him.

_ “Um, all right kid, what the hell just happened?” _ Tony demanded.

Peter grabbed the silk with both hands to alleviate some of the weight on his right shoulder while he was trying to figure out his next step.  “Well, I fell. But just a bit.”

Natasha cut in.   _ “Just a bit?” _

“I’m good.  I had to throw a web, though, so I guess some of our secrecy is out the window.”

Tony’s sigh was audible over the intercom.   _ “Look, as long as you’re not a spider-puddle, I’m okay with that.  Now, are you at the bottom floor?” _

“Yep.”

_ “Okay.  Here’s what you need to do.  According to our video feed of the surveillance cameras, there shouldn’t be anyone on the other side of that door leading into the hallway.  Pry it open, and we’ll direct you from there.” _

Peter nodded before remembering that Mr. Stark couldn’t see him.  “Right.” His shoulders were aching slightly with the tension of holding the thread, but he shifted his grip to his left hand and aimed his wrist across the shaft so he could swing to the other side.  Then, just as he double-tapped his palm and silk spun out of his web-shooter, the machinery beneath him clanked and came to life.

The elevator was moving again.

“Shit.”  He looked up, trying to see whether the elevator was coming closer to him or moving farther up the shaft.  Of course, it was descending, chasing him down the shaft like a predator closing in on a trapped rabbit.

Peter let go of the silk in his left hand, tucking his legs up to avoid the cable mechanisms as he swung to the other side of the shaft.  The door was just above him; he pulled himself up higher, gripped the wall with his toes, and dug his fingers into the slit between the two metal panels.

The elevator wasn’t stopping.  “How close is that thing, Karen?”  Panic had seeped into his voice a little, and he cursed the fact that it was probably coming over the intercom in everyone else’s ear.

**The elevator is two floors above you and descending.**

“Come on come on come on come on.”  The words tumbled out of his mouth as he wrenched his fingers deeper between the doors.  If it hadn’t been a newer building, the mechanisms holding the doors in place wouldn’t have been so tight.  Peter’s super strength fired through his muscles and he tore the two metal panels apart just as the elevator reached the floor above.  Without any ceremony, he dove into the hallway, the doors slamming shut behind him as the elevator rattled down to where he had just been.

**There are seven occupants on the elevator, Peter.  You should hide.**

The hallway looked like the inside of a school, almost; it had white walls with white doors dotting along on one side every ten feet or so.  There was no obvious hiding place and Peter hadn’t been given any more information on what was behind the doors. Any one of them could have dozens of people behind it.  “Mr. Stark, tell me where to go!” he hissed into the intercom.

_ “Karen, send me the visual feed of Peter’s view,” _ Mr. Stark barked in his ear, and a little green light blinked into focus in the corner of Peter’s display, indicating that he was sharing his screen.  The elevator dinged behind him.  _ “Third door down on the right hand side is a maintenance closet.  Go!” _

Peter broke into a sprint, his metal Iron Spider boots sounding terrifyingly loud against the clean tile of the floor.  It was a thirty-foot sprint to the third door down, and a straight tunnel. He would be visible to anyone who stepped into the hallway until he got there.  He didn’t have time.

The sound of elevator doors sliding open behind him made his heart shoot into his throat.  But he didn’t stop running, not until his Spider-sense told him that a gun was being cocked behind him.  Peter dodged hard right as a strange  _ thoomp _ sounded from over his shoulder -- a silenced weapon? -- and a bullet whizzed by right where he had been.

“I’m going to say,” Peter began as he planted a foot on the wall and flipped backward to avoid another bullet, “that stealth is absolutely gone at this point!”

_ “Fuck!” _  The frustration in Tony’s voice burned Peter’s confidence, but he didn’t have time to think about how he might have let Mr. Stark down now.  His Spider-sense was constantly firing; he turned to face the group from the elevator, ready to take down whoever had the weapon.

It was not quite the sight he’d expected.

The occupants should have been a small group of scientists working for Hydra, whoever would be down on the R&D floor, normally.  Peter had figured that maybe they had one armed guard with them, just out of coincidence. After all, they had been stealthy on the entry -- no one was supposed to know they were here, so everybody in the building should have been going about their regular business.  This did not seem like their regular business.

Every single person from the elevator was dressed in lightweight armor; bulletproof vests, protective helmets and eyewear, and rifles with black silencers wedged onto the muzzle.  Either he had just happened to run into a significant portion of their security, or their secret breach of the building had not been so secret, after all. “Hey, guys, nice clothes,” Peter hooted, his comments forced out of him by the fear tensing his muscles, “I feel kind of out of place, honestly.  Somebody should have sent a memo that we were all going to be in tactical gear.”

_ “Tactical gear?” _ he heard Natasha’s voice over the intercom.  “ _ Something’s not right, Stark.” _

_ “Peter, get the fuck out of there,” _ Tony growled, even though there was no place to go, and Peter knew that Mr. Stark could see that, because the man could see Peter’s (fairly hopeless) view.

Judging by the number of people in front of him -- who were slowly closing in -- and the caliber of their weapons compared to Peter’s abilities, it wasn’t hard to calculate his chances of winning down to about zero.  

Then, a deafening alarm screeched to life around him, and the fluorescent lights darkened to a deep, intimidating red.  It bathed the tactical team in a bloody hue -- something out of a nightmare.

“Not sure if I’m going to get out of this one,” Peter said, his voice breaking slightly as he realized what was about to happen.

_ “Peter, don’t -- ” _

His Spidey-sense was almost overwhelming, telling him how many people were closing in.  Then, with echoing  _ bangs _ that got progressively louder, each door down the hallway behind him burst open, and about a dozen more fully-armed guards spilled into the corridor.

Peter had never been good at English class, but for some reason, as he reached up to put his hands behind his head and kneel on the floor, a poem that he had read sometime during high school phased into his mind.  As the guards approached him, guns drawn, and several people grabbed his limbs and wrested his hands behind his back, the words tumbled into his head like a solemn memory.  _ Do not go gentle into that good night. _

Somebody pushed a muzzle into the base of his skull and prodded him back to his feet.  Then, with a 20-man escort, Hydra hurried him toward one of the white doors that was still closed.  He didn’t know what to expect beyond it, and he could feel himself trembling with fear. But he had to pretend he was brave.  “Just you guys wait til I’m done with you,” he said, false cheer in his words.

The gun muzzle pressed him forward, and someone opened the door in front of him.  Suddenly, he realized that poem wasn’t in his memory at all. It was Wade’s voice, coming in slow and assuring over the intercom.

_ “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mission isn't over, of course! How will Peter ever get out of this pickle?


	11. Peter's Approximate Strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this was a challenge. I ended up writing way more than I intended, all with the same wrist issues. But I'm glad I got it out there, and I hope you all enjoy it just the same. I only proofread once, so sorry if things slipped by me.
> 
> Next chapter will ideally be a little lighter! This one got heavy.
> 
> P.S. I'm making a short edit to the idea of the mission, which is that the Avengers were actually commissioned by the Canadian government to collect the biological weapon from Hydra. It's more consistent with Stark's position on the Civil War issue, and still works with the story.

 

___WADE

 

Going on missions was not a foreign concept.  Wade frequently traveled between the big cities in New England, and sometimes even some of the big cities around the globe, to get jobs done.  Of course, they were mostly solo expeditions; the best he had to keep him company was usually the lovely White and Yellow, who would generally drive him close to madness with their bickering.  He was certainly looking forward to having other voices in his head for a short time. Like a real team.

When he figured out that Stark hadn’t included him in the intercom, it took about five minutes from his smart phone to hack into the system and get his own suit-embedded earpiece online.  It would have taken him two minutes, except it was Stark’s system, and the asshole was pretty good at technology. Even Wade had to admit that.

It gave him great pleasure, of more than one type, when he finally got the system to come on, and he heard Petey’s voice.   _ “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, reporting for duty,” _ he said.  God, what an adorable nerd.

One thing Wade hadn’t accounted for was the anxiety.  He was so used to working alone that when it came to being on a mission with Peter, he was surprised by how absolutely petrified he felt.  When Peter was told to get in the hole they’d cut in the elevator shaft from the roof, Wade couldn’t help but pipe in.

“Go kick some Hydra ass, Petey!” he said quickly, as if not saying it in that exact moment meant he could never say it.  He even ignored Stark yelling at him over the intercom, hoping that Peter would say something back. But the kid didn’t say anything -- just disappeared into the top of the building.

For a moment, Wade watched Black Widow, Iron Ass, and Iron Ass the Sequel pack up on the roof.  Then, he turned around, not sure what to do with himself. The Hulk, in his less-impressive form, was still just sitting in the car with the flashers on, on the side of the lonely road they were on.  Sitting with a scientist in a tiny car sounded about as fun as pushing his own katanas through his spleen, though. Instead, he sat down next to a tree and looked around at the beautiful Canadian nature.  He hadn’t been lying when he’d said that Canada was his favorite place in the world. There was just something so crisp about the air, so pure about the people. You couldn’t find good people like Jacques the air traffic controller when you were south of the border.  Everybody in America had an agenda. He didn’t exclude himself from that, either. He probably had more agendas than most people.

Even Peter had agendas.

{ _ Pshht.  Our baby boy’s only agenda is to look adorable and save people. _ }

[ _ I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Yellow, but Peter has a pretty clean slate, as far as “agendas” go. _ ]

Wade wanted to talk to the voices, but with his intercom hooked up, it would probably look a little crazier than usual.  He could just disconnect the intercom, but...at the same time, he didn’t want to give up the chance to say something to his baby boy.  Maybe something in code. Something that Petey would understand but nobody else would.

The problem was, he couldn’t imagine what that would be, except for something explicit.  It didn’t seem like a good idea to distract his Spidey in THAT way, not when he was on a super-secret stealth mission.

{ _ I think we should absolutely say something explicit, _ } Yellow mused.

At least White was on Wade’s side.  [ _ That’s the last thing that Petey would want to hear right now. _ ]

{ _ Oh, man, I could think of so many things to whisper in that kid’s ear.  We could tell him how his amazing cock tasted in our mouth. _ }

Wade nearly choked.  He hastily reached under the flap of his mask and disconnected his intercom -- the input, anyway -- and gave Yellow a piece of his mind, keen to use every expletive known to man to beat his own subconscious back where it belonged: firmly in the “sub” part of his brain.

{ _ All right, all right, sheesh.  You’d think the kid was a martyr or something. _ }

White seemed a little too afraid to say anything.

With his intercom input still disconnected, Wade got up and meandered over to the vehicle that the non-Hulky Hulk was sitting in.  The nerd was still reading a book on molecular physics, but at the same time, Wade couldn’t really dig into the guy for being brainy.  Peter was brainy, and it was hot. However, as he studied Dr. Banner from ten feet away, he decided pointedly that “brainy” was hot on Peter only.  Or maybe everything was hot on Peter.

The scientist didn’t even look up.  It was a little disappointing, how tame Banner was compared to his much more exciting version.  

“Well, I’m bored,” Wade said through his mask, throwing his hands up into the air and turning back to look at the Hydra compound.  This was the stupidest mission of any stupid mission ever. He did solo stuff all the time, but sending Peter in by himself seemed extra dumb.  It was like the rest of them didn’t even need to be there.

“I’ll tell you what would have been a perfectly exciting mission,” Wade started, talking to the boxes for lack of better companionship.  “I could have gone in there, guns blazing, and got whatever we needed in like two seconds --”

Wade stopped when he realized that people were talking over the intercom.  He listened for a moment. Petey was stuck, having issues due to the elevator.  Eh, it was interesting, but Wade knew that his baby boy was flexible enough to worm his way out of a situation like that.  All the same, he kept listening.

Suddenly, there was a rushing noise in his ear, and a loud metallic scream.

“Holy fuck, baby boy, are you all right?!” he yelled out loud, before remembering that his intercom input wasn’t hooked up.  He fumbled under the bottom edge of his mask for a moment, but then Peter answered Stark. 

_ “Well, I fell.  But just a bit.” _

Romanov voiced Wade’s question as though they were on the same wavelength.   _ “Just a bit?” _

But Peter was saying he was okay, and Wade’s fingers stopped gunning to get his intercom hooked back up, and of  _ course _ it was okay.  Because it was Peter, right?  Peter fell from taller buildings than that elevator shaft all night long.  Hell, Wade had personally seen Peter fling himself off the top of the old Avengers tower.

All the same, Wade’s heart was still beating a mile a minute.

{ _ We have to bust in there. _ }

“What the fuck are you talking about, Yellow?”

[ _ Look, normally I would say that would be mental, but I have a bad feeling about this, too.  Something isn’t right. _ ]

“You guys are overreacting.  Stark set this thing up, and Spidey’s his prodigy.  He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.”

In the background of the intercom, there was a loud noise.  Wade tried to ignore it. It was probably something Iron Ass was up to.

{ _ I’m serious.  I would be the first to say we should just ditch!  You KNOW I’m not fucking around. _ }

“Come on, guys, what would go wrong?”

_ “How close is that thing, Karen?” _

Wade stopped.  Spidey’s voice sounded afraid.

_ “Come on come on come on come on.” _  There was straining in it, too.  Wade automatically dug his fingers back under the edge of his mask, trying to reattach his intercom input.  Normally, he was adept at these kinds of things, but for some reason, he couldn’t get his hands to work properly.  What was going on with him? He never lost his cool on a mission.

_ “Mr. Stark, tell me where to go!” _  Panic now.  Wade tore off his mask to get a better look at the wiring inside, barely noticing that Dr. Banner had gotten out of the car, his hand pressed to the intercom in his ear, looking alarmed.  Within thirty seconds, he reconnected the input and shoved his mask back over his face.

He heard the tail end of Spidey’s joke about everyone showing up in tactical gear.  Wade could hear the terror laced under the words.

_ “Peter, get the fuck out of there,” _ Stark was saying.

An alarm was blaring into his ear, and then -- 

_ “Not sure if I’m going to get out of this one.” _

“Peter, don’t -- ” Wade began, but Stark said the same exact words over him.  They both stopped, realizing that they’d cut in at the same time, and then Wade felt his heart drop into his boots.

Peter was getting captured.  By Hydra. Alone.

A million words of advice catapulted through his mind.  He had to tell Peter so many things, just in case they took out his intercom, just in case they  _ shot _ him (Wade couldn’t think about that).  None of the words seemed right. Yet he could hear Peter’s breath over the intercom.  He could feel the fear as easily as if he were in Spidey’s place.

Barely thinking, Wade grabbed at the first words that went through his mind in a coherent phrase.  “Do not go gentle into that good night,” he murmured, surprised at how low and calm his voice was.

It was a poem, he thought.  Maybe a song he’d heard. But it was something, something for Peter to hold onto.

_ “Just you guys wait til I’m done with you.” _

Wade licked his lips under the mask, eyes locked on the compound as if he could see Peter’s face through the tons of concrete and steel.  “Rage,” he managed, not letting his voice fail him, “rage against the dying of the light.”

Peter didn’t say anything more.  The lack of response felt like a knife in Wade’s stomach.  And he’d been stabbed in the stomach plenty of times. This was comparable.

He turned to Banner, who was standing dumbly beside him.  “What just happened?”

“We just got an eighteen-year-old kid captured, is what just happened,” Deadpool snapped.  “Did you hear that, Stark? We just got a fucking eighteen-year-old kid captured!”

_ “I hear you loud and clear, Wade.  Now is NOT the time to lose your damn cool.  Now is the time to formulate a plan to get him out.” _

“Stark!” Wade shouted into the intercom.  “This is Hydra we’re talking about. They’re known to play with their food a bit.  And I think you want that to happen to Peter just about as much as I do. Which is to say, as much as I want to spare your damn life right now.  So, not a whole lot.”

_ “Wade, I’m working on it.  Do not make me send a babysitter over there.” _

Even Wade was impressed at the string of expletives that came out of his mouth, directed with the utmost spite at the tin can that was Tony fucking Stark.

_ “All right, you asked for it.” _

A few seconds later, a silver suit exploded out from behind the Hydra facility and careened toward Wade and the good doctor.  The suit was so substantial that when it landed, it shook the ground a little bit.

[ _ Say what you will about those suits, but Stark and Rhodes know how to make an entrance. _ ]

{ _ Psht.  We could do better. _ }

The metal mask covering Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes’ face slid up and out of the way.  The man licked his lips, nostrils flared. “Listen up, asshole. This is an  _ Avengers _ mission.  I’m not quite sure why you’re here in the first place, but you’re going to shut up now and let the adults take care of things.”

[ _ Never mind what I said about them being cool.  Let me at ‘em. That douche is going to pay. _ ]

Wade could feel fury building up in his muscles, the sweet, sweet catalyst that often made his actions all the more violent.  “You better go get Spidey out then, because he’s the only adult I see around here. All the rest of you babies are standing around letting a kid do all your fucking dirty work.”  He was willing his voice not to shake, which was making his tone sound all the more tight. Anyone who knew him well would know to back the fuck off. But he’d never had the displeasure of working with this piece of work before.

Rhodes raised a metallic finger and pointed it at Wade.  God, that made his blood boil. “Know your place, Deadpool.  You have a soft spot for the kid, I get it. I know you had to share his heat, so you’re protective of him.  Maybe you even bonded with him, I don’t know. But you need to get your head on your goddamn shoulders and understand that this mission isn’t about you.  Being an Avenger means rolling with the punches, keeping calm, and -- ”

Without giving even the slightest hint of warning, Wade turned around, wound up, and landed a punch square to Dr. Banner’s face.

The scientist reeled, hand over his eye, and stumbled back to the ground.  In a flash, Wade felt metal arms clenched around his own, holding him back.  “What the fuck, man!?” Rhodes yelled in Wade’s ear. “Bruce, you -- ”

“I’m okay, yeah,” Banner grunted from the ground, pushing himself up onto his elbow.  “God that hurt.” He pulled his hand away from his eye, which had a bloody ring around it where Wade’s knuckles had connected with the bone through the tissue, then looked up at Wade.  “You’re a jerk, you know that?”

Damn, Banner had more control than Wade had anticipated.  He respected that. But, he didn’t need control right now.  Right now, he just wanted to go in guns blazing, and the biological weapon be damned.  So, there was only one thing left to do.

Rhodes had pinned Wade’s arms, but he hadn’t pulled him away.  Rookie mistake. Before anybody could do anything else, Wade kicked Banner in the crotch.  Hard.

It only took a moment to know that THAT had done the trick.

{ _ This is going to be fun. _ }

 

~~~~

 

___PETER

Everything was very loud.  Ever since he had gotten his spider bite years before, his senses had been dialed to eleven.  But, he had learned to tune out various sounds. He was good enough at it that he could live in New York City and not go absolutely crazy.

The room he was in was different.

Twenty or so Hydra agents had pushed him into a room beyond one of the white doors lining the hallway.  It was dark inside, with absolutely no light coming in or being produced by anything. The last light that Peter had seen had been the red tint in the hallway.  Then the door had closed. He was pretty good at seeing in the dark -- his extra sense was helpful that way -- and his suit had night vision, besides. Without any light input, though, Karen had turned off the glaring green of the night vision on his display and now he was in the dark.  Even if he knew he could avoid bumping into things with his spider-sense, it didn’t exactly give him anything to look at, all the same. All sensory information to his eyes had been cut off, and his ears were trying to make up for it.

It sounded like he was in a laboratory of some kind.  Dripping fluids, machines whirring, and even electrical currents started pulsing against his eardrums.  The one thing he couldn’t hear was anybody on the intercom. Maybe the room was insulated so sturdily that it even blocked the superior signal of Mr. Stark’s own communication technology.

Being shuffled around with a gun muzzle to his spinal cord was equally unnerving.  He had the suspicion that his suit was bulletproof, judging by Mr. Stark’s apparent desire to afford Peter every eventuality, every failsafe.  But he still wouldn’t like to catch the force of a bullet point-blank to his spine, whether his suit absorbed most of the shock or not. 

Finally, after taking a meandering route that made it seem like Hydra was leading him through the world’s most uptight maze, he heard another door open -- the sleek hiss of pressurized mechanisms told him it was a hydraulic sliding door.  Then, with a shove that there seemed no point to resist, he was pushed forward into empty space, the hydraulic door sliding shut behind him a second later.

For a moment, he felt almost discombobulated.  Then, he blinked, still pulling in nothing visually, and  _ felt _ the person standing behind him.

Peter’s muscles fired more on instinct than anything else; he dove forward, pushed off his hands, twisting in the air, and landed on the balls of his feet on top of a chair that seemed to be placed in the middle of the floor.  The person was in front of him now, which meant Peter had more options for defensive action, and now Peter had a weapon (well, a chair). “Who are you?” Peter snapped, his two middle fingers poised over the trigger of his web-shooter.

There was silence for a moment.  Neither of them moved; Peter could feel the man standing stock-still, ten feet in front of him.  Then, there was a strange sound, like something he’d heard Aunt May do once.

The man was  _ tsking _ at him.

“No manners,” he said, his European accent sounding...disappointed.

Peter blinked again.  What the hell kind of villain was this?

“Sorry,” he answered slowly.  “I’m from New York, you know. We’re not always the most polite on the first greeting.”

“So I’ve heard.  Such a pity.” It was definitely a German accent.  Peter had thought that Hydra had left Germany a long time ago.  “Ah, well. No use crying over spilt milk, as you say. Let me introduce myself.  I am Luka Johanneson.”

Peter could feel the man reaching out with a handshake into the dead space.  Maybe he didn’t realize that Peter had flipped away. All the same, he doubted that he would have met the handshake, even if they were within arm’s reach of each other.  Instead, he simply said, “Spider-Man.” Then, remembering that the man liked manners, he added lamely, “Nice to meet you.”

Luka Johanneson’s hand dropped to his side when Peter didn’t shake it.  He could hear the man instead fiddling with something behind his back. Although Peter’s spider-sense had been tingling dully in the back of his neck the whole time, it now shot painfully up into his scalp.  In less than a heartbeat, he shot up off the chair, double-tapped his palm, and slung a web at the handgun that the man had produced. There was the crack of a bullet firing out of the barrel, and a splintering of wood told him that the bullet had hit the back of the chair that he had just been on.  All the same, Peter had aimed true and the weapon jerked out of Johanneson’s hand, stuck to the end of Peter’s web. Still in the air, Peter whipped it to the side. The sound that it made when it finally hit something told him that the weapon had connected with glass.

By the time Peter landed on the hard tile floor, Johanneson was laughing.

“You truly are remarkable, Spider-Man.”

“That’s one adjective they use to describe me.”

“It’s a pity that you don’t have much time.”

Peter swallowed.  Johanneson was still just standing in front of him, Peter could tell.  Somehow it was so much worse than if the man had been actively trying to fight him.  “Time for what?”

The chuckling stopped.  “Oh, you know, the things that sentimental people wish they had time for.  More sunrises, or whatever fools desire.”

Peter’s sense of hearing made his heartbeat sound disturbingly loud.  He swallowed again -- his throat was dry with panic, but he couldn’t let it show.  “It’s pretty hard to kill me, bro. Lots of people have tried.”

He could feel Johanneson’s shoulders tense up -- he was shrugging.  “I am aware. Many of those people have even been affiliated with Hydra.  But this time might be different.”

“Why?”

Johanneson sighed.  “The time for questions is over.  I will leave you now. If you’ll excuse me, Spider-Man.”  And the hydraulic door opened and slid shut, and suddenly Peter was alone again.

For a moment, Peter simply stayed crouching on the floor, listening.  He really was alone -- he couldn’t sense anyone else in the room with him.  And he was in a separate room, in a way. He could feel barriers of some kind all around him.  But at the same time, it didn’t  _ feel _ like a proper room.

“Karen, don’t I have a flashlight or something in this suit?”

**Yes, Peter.  Hold your left hand out, palm down.**

Peter followed Karen’s instructions.  Suddenly, a blindingly bright, bluish light came to life on the back of his hand.  It projected forward over his fist, shooting straight out and lighting up the area.  He felt a rush of affection toward Mr. Stark, whose design features kept seeming to come in handy no matter how obscure.

He was right that he was in a separate room, but it more like a small chamber.  The walls seemed to be made up entirely of glass, except for what appeared to be a steel door on the hydraulic system, which followed a track of runners reaching up toward the ceiling.  On the other side of the glass, he could see the laboratory that he had been led through. The first thing that caught his eye was a whole table full of dead rats in jars. He resisted the urge to be sick and turned the flashlight toward the ceiling.

Unlike the rest of the room, the ceiling was not made up of glass, but of venting panels.  Maybe the room was airtight, and the venting provided airflow.

“All right, Karen, we have to get out of here.  Do you have access to Mr. Stark at all?”

**The walls of the laboratory are disrupting any communication to outside.  You won’t be able to get through to the Avengers until you leave this area.**

“Okay.  I guess we have to bust out.”  Peter shined the flashlight around the rest of the room.  The broken chair was truly the only thing in sight. There weren’t even any restraints on the chair or anything -- it was just a basic, wooden chair.

_ Maybe there’s no need to restrain people in here.  Maybe there’s no chance of them getting out. _  The thought flittered across his mind before he could stop it.

“Enough negativity,” he said to himself as much as to Karen.  He walked determinedly to one end of the room, opposite the massive panel of glass that made up the other wall.  Normally, he’d try to think of the best physics to create the most force, but his head was blank. Instead, he just started running.

It hurt like hell when his shoulder hit the barrier without producing so much as a crack.

“Holy shit that’s solid,” he wheezed, holding his arm with the other hand.

**It’s four-inch ballistic glass.**

“Are you shitting me?!  Talk about deja vu.” He turned back toward the wall and pounded on it with the side of his fist, even though he knew it was futile.  There was no damn helicopter in here to help him create enough momentum. “I think I’ve found my arch-nemesis, Karen.”

**Really?  Who?**

“Thick windows, apparently.”

Peter pressed his metallic fingertips against the glass.  If he couldn’t get through to the Avengers, and they couldn’t get through to him, how would they know where he was?  The little green light in the corner of his display had gone out when they stepped into the laboratory and Peter lost contact with Mr. Stark.  They would have no idea what was going on or how to get to him.

Why had they put  _ him, _ of all people, in the fray first?  He had the least experience. It was slowly dawning on him that no matter what he had done, there had been pretty much no way this wasn’t a solo mission.  If they wanted stealth, they couldn’t throw a whole team in here. Instead, they’d thrown Peter in alone. Frustration boiled up his throat and tasted foul in his mouth; the bottom half of the mask suddenly rolled away from his mouth and nose so he could breathe properly.

“Thanks, Karen,” he murmured, pressing his forehead against the glass.

**Someone’s there, Peter.**

His heartbeat followed his frustration into his throat.  On the other side of the glass, looming out of the darkness, was the man that had been in the room with him earlier.  Peter could now see the man’s ghastly pale face and gray eyes. He was in a lab coat; the name tag on the lapel said “Dr. Johanneson,” just as he’d described minutes before.

Peter mastered the panic that was racing through him and forced himself to step away from the glass calmly.  “Are you just going to keep me in here?” he called through the window.

Johanneson simply smiled, gestured to the glass and touched his ear.   _ I can’t hear you. _  Peter folded his arms, finding it harder to not let his body betray his fear.  He’d let Dr. Johanneson say what he needed to say.

But it didn’t seem like the doctor had approached him to talk.  Instead, by the dim light that was still coming off Peter’s hand, Peter could see the man busying himself with something -- a small black case -- on a table just outside of the glass room.  After a moment, the lid of the case flipped up, and the man took out something small, a vial, it looked like, from inside it.

The vial glinted green in the man’s hand.  There was a viscous liquid inside it, sludging around as Johanneson turned to a computer that was attached to the side of the glass room.  He punched some buttons, and Peter heard the venting units open above him.

“Oh, fuck.”

He didn’t need to have seen a shit ton of movies to know what was coming next.  This wasn’t just an airtight glass room; this was an experiment room. The venting units were for the administration of chemicals in a gaseous form.

Johanneson slid the vial into what Peter could only assume was a vaporizer, the closed the glass door on the front of the machine and nodded curtly at Peter before pressing one more button.

Then he walked away, leaving the dim radius of light that Peter’s suit provided.

“Karen, we  _ have _ to get out of here.”

**You may not be able to create enough momentum to break through the glass.  The vents above lead to a grate of steel cables covering a system of pipes.**

Peter stepped back and looked up.  “Okay, maybe I can -- ”

Suddenly, one of the vents started hissing.  Then another. And another.

The metal panels of Peter’s mask shifted back over Peter’s nose and mouth automatically.  For a moment, he couldn’t see if there was anything coming out of vents, or if they were just making noise to release pressure.  Then the vent nearest him started billowing out opaque clouds of white gas.

The panic that Peter had been trying to reel in the whole time he’d been inside the Hydra facility boiled over.  It didn’t seem so much like he fell to the floor as the floor came up to meet him; terror had seized his limbs entirely.

“What  _ is _ that?!”

**I can’t recognize its chemical structure.  My guess is a neurotoxic gas or a nerve agent.**

White puffs of the gaseous chemical were filling the room.  Peter pushed himself back along the floor, fruitlessly trying to escape the poison, until his shoulder blades were pressed up against the corner of the glass.  The feeling of the solid object behind him seemed to bring him to his senses; he pushed himself into an upright position, turned to the glass, and began punching it with all his might.

Mr. Stark had once told Peter that he’d calculated Peter’s approximate strength to being able to lift around 10 long tons; that was 22,400 pounds.  And as much as the billionaire had told him that Captain America could have laid him out if he’d wanted to, Peter knew that he was stronger than Cap.  He was probably one of the strongest people on the team, in fact, behind the Hulk (Tony had told him that Banner could lift 100 tons when he was relatively calm, and more if he got even angrier), and Thor of course (Thor had told Peter that he once lifted 324 quintillion tons.  The idea of that much weight made Peter’s head hurt). But there was something different about trying to escape a room that was designed to keep people -- and potentially people even stronger than him -- from breaking out. He’d always had to pull his punches when fighting most people, to keep from killing them.  Now, no matter how much super strength he piled into his muscles, no matter how much his body screamed at him, he couldn’t do more than make stupid, spidery cracks that did nothing ultimately. All the while, his spider-sense was painful in the back of his head and neck, seeming to confirm Karen’s theory. If he breathed this gas, it would kill him.

He sensed it encroaching behind him, moving more slowly than regular gas, more thickly, like a fog, like it knew that he was a panicking little kid in the corner and it wanted to draw out his terror as long as possible.

Peter’s senses lit up as the gas met him, folded around him, and covered his view.  He took in a quick breath, not enough to last him even a half-minute with his pounding heartbeat demanding more oxygen.  As he sank to his knees, metallic fingers dragging scratch marks down the glass wall, he felt his lungs burn. Knowing that this was it, that it was his last moment, he pounded his fist against the window and pleaded, said the only name that came to his mind: “Wade!”

He closed his eyes and took in a rattling breath.

Peter knew enough about chemicals and biology to expect several things.  He expected a potential reaction in his mouth, trachea, and lungs, possibly burning or blistering.  He expected, if it was indeed a nerve agent, to feel his nose start to run uncontrollably; a tightness in his chest, difficulty breathing, and increased salivation would happen soon after, along with a possible wave of nausea.  Then, as he started to lose control of his muscles, he’d start crying, vomiting, maybe jerking sporadically until he went into a full-blown seizure. Lastly, he’d asphyxiate, or maybe his heart would stop beating first. He didn’t know which one would hurt less.

What he didn’t expect was...nothing.

Instead of dying, he was still there, kneeling on the tile floor, fist to the glass, panting.

**The nerve agent can’t permeate your suit.  Your air filter should effectively prevent poisoning for several hours.**

Peter closed his eyes as the adrenaline that had overtaken him shuddered through his body.  “Are you serious?” he managed, swallowing hard. “Why could you have told me that sooner, Karen?  I thought I was going to die.”

**Without access to a database that included the chemical structure of the nerve agent, I couldn’t be sure how your suit would hold up.  It seems like we’re in the clear for the time being.**

“So...you thought I was going to die, too?”

**I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.  I’m glad you’re okay.**

Peter’s fist slid down the glass and he supported himself on his hands and knees on the floor.  He was still trembling with the aftermath of truly believing that he was living through his last moments.

**It’s okay to breathe, Peter.**

She was just AI, but damn, Peter could have kissed Tony Stark for making Karen so authentic.  It almost felt like he wasn’t in here alone.

“How much time do we have?”

**Your suit is designed to keep you safe for ten hours in a variety of hostile environments.  Tony Stark built it to work in space and underwater. After ten hours, the respiration system is less reliable, but it has the potential to function successfully for several more hours.**

Peter pushed himself into a crouching position and sat on the balls of his feet, finally mastering his racing heart.  “And then what?”

**The suit may be able to fix its own respiration system if it is in good condition.  If not, Tony Stark may need to address the problem.**

“No, I meant -- ”

He didn’t get a chance to tell Karen that he meant to ask what would happen to  _ him _ once the respiration system failed, because somewhere, beyond the glass walls of the experimentation chamber, beyond the concrete of the laboratory, Peter heard what sounded like a roaring noise.  It was short, animalistic, and terrifying.

“Please tell me they’re not working on remaking dinosaurs in here or something.  I’ve seen  _ Jurassic Park _ .”

The roaring got louder, followed by the sound of crashing.  Around him, Peter could feel vibrations -- maybe too small for a normal person to pick up on, but his senses caught it easily.  It felt like the first tremors of an earthquake.

Another crash shook the building.  And another. There was a louder roar, closer now.  Something was descending toward him, through the floors of the building.  He backed away from the glass and toward the center of the room, where the fog of nerve gas was the thickest.  He couldn’t see anything, so he had to trust that his Spidey-sense wouldn’t let him down.

Then, like a bomb going off, the ceiling of the laboratory seemed to fall in on itself.  The pipes above the experimentation room groaned and the ventilation system failed, leaving clouds of gas but not pumping any more in.  He closed his eyes and tried to understand what was in front of him on the other side of the glass. His spider-sense had picked up again, buzzing all along his body as he determined the shape of whatever had crashed down into the laboratory.  It was huge, he could tell.

There was the booming sounds of elephant-like footfalls.  Then, with a dull  _ thunk _ , a massive green hand appeared on the other side of the glass.  Peter could see the outline of it through the fog, even though the gas nearly completely obstructed the beam of his flashlight.

It was the fucking Hulk.  “Holy shit, Karen, they came!” Peter laughed, stepping back.  “They -- ”

The hand disappeared from the glass, and suddenly Peter realized what was about to happen.  He tumbled forward to warn them. “No no no no it’s poison!” he yelled, flailing his hands hopelessly.

A millisecond later, the glass exploded toward him.

Peter reacted the instant the glass gave; he elongated his body backward, hands reaching toward the wall behind him as shards shot in and ricocheted off his suit.  His fingers made contact with the floor and every muscle in his arms fired as he pushed himself back once more; then his feet hit the wall behind him. He clung to the surface, shielding his mask face with one arm.  Glass  _ pinged _ off the floor, ceiling, and other walls.

Instantly the gas billowed outward toward the open air of the laboratory.  “Don’t breathe it!” Peter shouted, trying to clear the fog away so he could see.  He had no idea if the Hulk was poison-proof, and he couldn’t tell who else was with him, although his senses could tell that there were two other figures somewhere in the room.  “Don’t breathe it, it’s poison!”

A familiar voice reached him.  “Baby boy!” Peter’s heart shot into his mouth.

_ Wade was here.  Breathing nerve gas. _

Peter flung himself off the wall and toppled the form that was emerging from the clearing fog.  He knocked Wade to the floor and clenched his metal hand over the mercenary’s nose and mouth. “Oh my God, Wade,  _ please _ tell me you didn’t -- ” Peter gasped, eyes searching Deadpool’s body for signs that the man was seizing up.  “Don’t be -- ”

Wade simply lifted his hands off the ground in a surrendering way and said something behind Peter’s muffling hand.

“Spider-Man.”

Peter looked up, at the second figure, now clearly visible.  It was Natasha. She was holding a handgun, pointed at the floor.  The clouds of gas were still thick enough around her face, but she had no respirator, no mask, no nothing.  She seemed fine, her eyebrows scrunched with worry.

“Why aren’t you guys dying?  This is nerve gas.”

Natasha looked around, eyes settling on the vents in the ceiling.  “Are you sure? I’m not feeling anything. It doesn’t smell like any nerve gas I’ve learned about.”

“That’s what Karen said, I don’t -- ”

“You’re probably killing your friend, though,” Nat interrupted him, nodding at Deadpool.  Peter looked down and realized his hand was still clamped over Wade’s nose and mouth. Embarrassment rushed into his chest as he released his hand and stood up over Wade, who was still on the floor with his hands up.

“I’m fine, Spidey.  Besides, this ain’t my first rodeo.  I’ve faced nerve gas before. It hurts like a bitch, but only until you die.”

Peter pulled Wade to his feet and felt confusion set in.  “I don’t know what’s up with the gas; I know it came out of a vial over on the other side of that wall.”  He gestured over to the computer, which had miraculously escaped the destruction of the glass, and Natasha backed out of the debris, rounded the corner, and inspected the vaporizing machine and the computer.  Peter looked at Deadpool, whose grin was visible through his mask. “Mr. Stark decided to use the Hulk to come get me?”

Wade waffled for a second.  “ _ Decided  _ to... _ didn’t know  _ about it…” he sang, rolling his head from side to side.  “Same difference.”

“You got us into trouble, didn’t you?”

“Baby boy, you’re the one who was in trouble.”

Peter clapped his hand to his face, making a weird metallic sound.  “At least it was with Hydra. I’d face them any day over Mr. Stark.”

A big hand was on his shoulder suddenly.  “At least you’re safe.”

A tapping noise caught Peter and Wade’s attention.  Natasha waved from the other side of the window, the vial in her hand.  She also had the black case from whence it came, which Dr. Johanneson had apparently left on the counter.

“Let’s go,” Wade said quickly, “before this building collapses in.  We pretty much destroyed the integrity.”

“What about Hydra?”

Wade shrugged.  “Well, safe to say we probably destroyed a lot of them, too.”

Peter swallowed, nodded, and followed Wade out of the completely exploded wall of glass.  He sidled past the Hulk, who was taking up quite a lot of space in the laboratory and breathing heavily, looking pleased with himself.

“You guys want a ride?” Peter offered, gesturing to Natasha and Wade.

Nat scrunched her nose.  “I’m good.”

“Oh Spidey, I’d love to ride you,” Wade said, his voice going lower than Peter expected.  Natasha seemed to gag over Wade’s shoulder. Peter felt a blush rocket up his neck and into his cheeks.

“All right,” he managed, and held out his arm for Wade to get in close.  Then, with the mercenary clinging to him, Peter aimed his wrist toward the massive hole of light above them, where the sky was tinged red with the setting sun, 150 feet up.

  
  


~~~~

 

Hot water streamed off Peter’s hair and down to the clean tile floor.  It was strange, but he couldn’t help relishing the feeling of something so simple as showering.  Despite not dying, he still felt a strangely deep, residual anxiety, like he might just collapse at any second.  Peter pushed the thought away and cupped water to his face.

He sensed Wade before he heard him, but there was no tingling up his neck.  Wade wasn’t dangerous to him. Instead of tensing up, he felt his muscles relax.

A finger traced the back of Peter’s hairline where it met his spine.  “You healed up perfectly. No teeth marks at all,” Wade murmured. His voice sounded low and honeyed.

Peter didn’t respond; he just stood there, eyes closed, hands fixed on his upper arms like he was protecting himself.  From what, he wasn’t sure.

Mr. Stark had quarantined Dr. Banner, Natasha, Wade, and Peter to the back half of the plane on the whole jet ride home.  He’d explained it away as not knowing what was in the gas, but Peter felt like the billionaire was also disappointed in the way the mission went.  The man had barely looked at him since they got back. He’d simply directed Peter into a decontamination chamber, then told Peter to ditch his suits (both of them) and hit the showers.  Bruce, Nat, and Wade all had to be decontaminated, too, but Bruce and Natasha had already showered. Together, maybe. Peter didn’t know.

Wade must have waited for him.

“Were you afraid?” Wade whispered, his voice startlingly close to Peter’s ear.

Without intending to, Peter shuddered.  If he opened his mouth, he’d probably cry.  Instead, he simply nodded.

“It’s okay.”

Arms folded Peter into a hug from behind.  Bare arms, scarred on every inch. Why had Peter thought of Wade when he’d thought he was going to die?  Why didn’t he think about Mr. Stark, his mentor? Or about his friends, Ned and MJ? Or Aunt May? Or Uncle Ben?

The arms gripped him tighter, and he realized he was trembling.  But even though he recognized it, he couldn’t stop. And as much as he didn’t want to try, he couldn’t help the hot tears that burned his eyes.  He’d thought he was about to die, seconds away from maybe seeing Uncle Ben again, wherever it was that people went when they left. He should have been thinking about Uncle Ben.  That’s what a grateful nephew would have done. Instead, he’d thought of Wade.

Part of him wanted to push the man away.  Instead, he let Wade hold him, let the man support Peter as he sagged and sobbed.

Maybe it was because he was an Omega, and somewhere in him, there was the instinct to let an Alpha take care of him, but Peter allowed Wade to run shampoo through his hair, allowed him to turn off the water, allowed him to towel Peter down.  He didn’t even protest when Wade led Peter to one of the spare rooms in the compound. It was 2:00 in the morning. He was exhausted, anyway.

The man handed Peter a pair of clean boxers and a clean T-shirt out of the bag that Peter had packed the previous day -- what seemed like ages ago.  Then, he simply placed his hands on Peter’s shoulders, gave them a small squeeze, and left.

As much as part of him wanted Wade to stay, the other part was glad that he could just lie in bed and think.

Several rooms away, Peter could hear shouting.  It was far enough away that Peter knew he shouldn’t be able to hear it, but he could with his powers.  Even though he couldn’t make out all the words, he knew that it was a conversation about him. It was Wade versus Tony.  As if the day could get any worse.

Peter rolled over in the spare bed and buried his face in his hands.


	12. Riding The High

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite a stressful week, I'm posting early.
> 
> This chapter is a bit lighter, a bit of a plot-mover, a bit of fun. Enjoy, and please leave comments! I love to read them and get your suggestions.
> 
> (Sorry again for any formatting errors or typos. I don't like to spend a ton of time proofreading.)

___PETER

 

Peter hadn’t been in touch with anyone from the team for more than two weeks now, after the disaster that had been the Canadian mission.  He did know, from the news coverage, that the Canadian government was not happy with how the Avengers had handled the operation, and that they were questioning Tony Stark’s decision to bring along Bruce Banner at all.  They also wanted to know why one of Vancouver’s most violent products -- the infamous mercenary, Deadpool -- had gotten mixed up in the whole business. Peter had seen Mr. Stark’s press conference on the matter, where the suave billionaire had tried to explain it away as well as he could.  He cited inadequate reconnaissance information, mistakes on his part, and the necessity of getting all team members out alive. It was an oddly humble interview, and Peter was impressed that Mr. Stark didn’t throw anybody under the bus. Things might have been different if they hadn’t gotten at least some of what they came for; the case that Natasha had stolen, along with the vial that had been used to fill the experimentation room with the toxic gas, were apparently crucial pieces of evidence as to what Hydra had been working on.  Tony had been sure to talk about how they had overcome the shitty odds and still achieved most of their end goal, and many of the journalists’ questions after the interview had been about whether the team was okay and what they suspected about the nature of the biological weapon. Apparently, most people didn’t care what had happened to an isolated Hydra base in Canada. 

Peter had watched the news report while curled up with Aunt May on that Sunday night after the mission, both of them nursing mugs of hot chocolate.

“Not a fan of that Tony Stark,” Aunt May had said, glaring at the television.  Peter couldn’t help but see now where her frustration was coming from. It had been a few years since she’d walked in on him in his Spider-Man suit -- that had been before his Spidey-sense was fully developed -- and as much as she knew that he was Spider-Man, she didn’t ask him a lot of questions.  Certainly, in the last couple months, the issue with being an Omega had been a little more pressing. Peter could already tell that she was going to be on him 24/7 about taking his heat regulators. As soon as the car that Mr. Stark had hired to drive Peter home from upstate had pulled up and dropped him off in Queens, Aunt May had given him a hug, asked him if he was okay, and then asked if he’d taken his pill.

Of course he hadn’t, so he was grateful for her superior responsibility.

“I’m okay, May.  It’s because of Tony that I’m okay, too,” Peter reassured her before taking another scalding sip of his hot chocolate.  He was a wimp with hot beverages. MJ and Aunt May had the common trait of preferring their coffee, tea, and hot chocolate at nearly boiling temperatures.  Peter liked it to be lukewarm so he could slam it down and run out the door.

Aunt May shook her head.  “Why do I get the feeling that we’re lucky you’re alive?”

“Everything was fine.”

She turned her glare to him.  “Cut the bullshit, Peter.”

He wilted slightly under her gaze.  “Occupational hazard, May.”

“You’re eighteen.  You shouldn’t even HAVE an occupation yet.”

All right.  It was time to redirect.  “I’m just glad that I get to do fun things like go to prom.  Aren’t you going to help me prepare for prom in three weeks?”

She leaned away from him and raised her eyebrows incredulously behind her massive glasses.  “Um, are you kidding? Of course I am. You’re going to go from awkward to suave in no time.”

Peter faked being offended.  “Awkward? Me? You’re thinking of someone else.”

The news report on the Avengers incident changed to an expose on aquarium fish right on cue, letting their argument over his wall-crawling hobby die out.  Instead, Aunt May had dived into a list of stores they had to check for rental tuxedos. “And you have to get MJ a corsage. I don’t care if you and Ned are taking her together.  That just means she gets two corsages.”

It seemed like strange poetic justice to be pulling up at MJ’s house about three weeks later, on a Friday night, knowing that he wasn’t about to meet his arch-nemesis when he opened the door.  He’d met MJ’s parents a long time ago, and neither of them were some super villain the way that Liz’s dad had turned out to be the Vulture.

Peter parked the car, straightened his R2D2-themed tie in the rearview mirror, and got out -- only to be greeted by MJ coming down the front steps anyway.  It was almost odd how good she looked in her prom dress. She had gone an unconventional route -- a silvery blue ruffled number that fanned up from her chest and hit just under her collar-bones, then tumbled down in big folds and came to just above her violet flats -- but she looked pretty damn good.  Peter swallowed down the confused blush that threatened to spread up his cheeks and spoke as evenly as possible.

“I thought we were going to take pictures with your parents inside?”

MJ shrugged.  “Let’s not.” Without further explanation, she opened the back door of the car and slid in, her dress making a prolonged  _ shh _ noise on the faux-leather interior.

Peter folded himself back into the front seat, restarted the car and took them back over Queens Boulevard towards the more urban parts of Forest Hills, where he and Ned lived.  MJ sat quietly in the backseat, not taking out her phone or distracting herself, but simply staring out the window as the houses passed by.

“You okay?” Peter couldn’t help but ask.

There was no answer for a long time.  Then, after about two minutes, during which Peter patiently waited for her to answer (she sometimes took a while to open up), she said dully, “Just looking forward to moving out.”

He had more questions, but her tone was the one that Peter had come to recognize as meaning that he shouldn’t pry.  So, he didn’t. After all, there had been many times when he’d used that tone on MJ in return. She’d found out about him being Spider-Man ages ago -- probably after the trip to Washington, D.C. -- but he didn’t like talking to her about his antics as a superhero.  She just didn’t geek out with him the same way that Ned did about it.

The car got a lot more talkative after Ned got in it.  

“Dude, do you think that Flash is going to spike the punch?  Because I heard that a senior got kicked out after doing that last year.  I would pay money to see Flash get kicked out of school, oh my God. Could you imagine?  His dad would probably flip a shit!”

By the time they finally pulled up to the school’s parking lot (New York streets on a Friday night were no joke), there were already tons of students milling around the front, and lights and balloons piled up by the doors.  His sensitive ears could pick up on the pounding bass a mile away. He’d forgotten how overwhelming the Homecoming dance had been, back in sophomore year. Mostly because he’d come to associate that night with getting the crap kicked out of him by the Vulture.

Just as they were walking up to the school, Peter felt his phone buzz in his pocket.  It was a text message. From  **DP <3 <3 <3 wit the fine ass.**

**Look up.**

Peter’s heartbeat thumped hard in his chest, and he stopped walking and craned his neck upward.  Was Deadpool freaking  _ here _ ?  At his prom?  He turned in a slow circle, ignoring that Ned and MJ had also stopped and were looking at him with worried expressions, and scanned the top of the school building.  There, near the corner of the edge of the roof, a single flower was peeking out, its head hanging over the side of the building.

“Um...I’ll meet up with you guys in there,” Peter said distractedly, turning to walk in the other direction.  

“Is it a…” Ned lowered his voice so only Peter could hear it with his superior senses, “...bad guy?”

Peter didn’t turn around, just shook his head and kept walking away from his friends.  Wade was not a bad guy. Just a little misguided, perhaps.

He dodged the droves of juniors and seniors on the sidewalk and made his way around the corner of the school, toward the darkened part where the streetlights didn’t hit.  His dress shoes crunched through some residual April snow that was slowly withering away in the milder spring temperatures. When he got to a part of the building where a tall tree blocked the view significantly, he gripped the edge of the building with his fingertips and started up.

Deadpool was waiting for him at the top.

“Hey, Petey,” the mercenary greeted him cheerfully, arms opened comically wide.  “I’ve missed you!”

It was strange how Wade’s presence created a warm place in Peter’s chest.  He couldn’t help but smile as he approached the man. “Is your suit dirty? Because I’m not hugging you if there’s gore on it.  This is a rental.”

“Freshly laundered, baby boy,” Deadpool answered, and folded Peter into his arms.

The first thing that Peter noticed was that the suit  _ did _ smell clean.  The second thing that Peter noticed was that, through that cleanliness, Peter could smell something a little stronger, a little headier.  The third thing he noticed was that Wade was hard.

“Happy to see me?” Peter mused, pulling away from Wade slightly.

“Oh, you know, it’s just been an agonizing few weeks since I’ve rutted.  The old Alpha biology’s looking for something to do.”

“Like me?”  The question came out before Peter could stop it.  Immediately he felt his cheeks go red.

Wade’s shoulders tensed for a second before he said lowly, “No teasing, Petey.  That rental might end up non-returnable.” The darkness in Wade’s voice, combined with the image that he conjured up, made Peter shiver, and a shot of heat hit his groin.  

The shiver seemed not to have gone unnoticed.  Although Peter wasn’t in heat, and his sense of smell wasn’t anywhere near as sensitive as it would be a week from now (when Peter would be able to smell every Alpha for blocks), his superior senses could pick up on Wade’s subtly changing scent just a little.  He could pick up on it even more when Wade rolled up the bottom of his mask to the bridge of his nose, stepped forward, and captured Peter’s mouth in a kiss.

Peter had started his Phase 2 heat regulators the week before, and while he hadn’t experienced too many side effects, he did notice two main things.  He had experienced just a little bit of cramping, low in his belly, as his organs slowly shifted to prepare for a heat. But he’d also felt just a little more desirous than normal.  It wasn’t anything huge -- not remotely comparable to how horny he’d be in his heat -- but he had gotten himself off quite a few times this week already. He supposed it was because the Phase 2 pills took him as close to being in heat as possible without interrupting his daily life; without actually pushing him over the edge.

It was also probably due to his Phase 2 regulators that he felt himself immediately melt into Wade’s kiss.  Moreover, it seemed so strange that just three weeks before, he hadn’t known  _ how _ to kiss Wade, how to react to the man making out with him.  Now, Peter’s lips and tongue seemed to know exactly what to do.  He reached up and cupped the back of Wade’s neck to pull the man in closer, and Peter felt the warmth in his chest and his groin intensify.

Wade groaned low in his throat, then broke away for a moment, his forehead pressed against Peter’s styled hair.  “Oh baby boy, I’m really appreciating this scent you’ve got going on. You’re as dangerous as ever, but that spice is just a  _ tease. _  Just a  _ preview _ of what’s to come.”

“You smell good, too,” Peter breathed, his lips already feeling slightly swollen.  The front of his pants was getting a little uncomfortable, and he wanted more. “Don’t stop.”

Wade shook his head, ruffling Peter’s hair.  “Don’t say that. Don’t tell me not to stop, because I won’t.”

Peter’s heartbeat was pulsing in his ears as he reached forward and palmed the hot bulge in Wade’s suit.

Wade bucked hard.

“Oh holy shit, baby boy.  Oh fuck, why does it feel like sex just to have you touch me through my pants like we’re in goddamn high school?”

Peter laughed, pressing harder, loving Wade’s reaction.  “I AM in high school, Wade.”

“You fucking gorgeous innocent little bastard.”  And then Wade’s lips were on his again.

It felt so strange, to be the one in control of the situation for once.  Sure, Peter wanted this, and he  _ was _ desperate, in his own way, but Wade’s Alpha biology was what was driving everything.  He could tell by the way that the man nipped at Peter’s lips with his teeth, the way that he was rutting into Peter’s hand; his body could get just as overwhelming as Peter’s.  Maybe not on a strict schedule the same way that heats were for Omegas, but Peter supposed that Alphas went through periods of time where they felt compelled to find an Omega to fuck.  The idea was so hot, for some reason.

Peter didn’t know how many moments they stood there, on top of his school, pressing forward into each other like two ocean currents meeting, biting and nipping and kissing hard, but at some point, he felt Wade’s cock twitch under his palm, and the mercenary broke the kiss, panting, “Petey if you don’t stop I’m gonna -- ”

But Peter didn’t want to stop, and he  _ wanted _ Wade to come in his suit.  He wanted to know that he could have the control, that he could make Wade orgasm the same way that Wade could make him do it.  So, knowing full well what it was going to do the man in front of him, Peter opened up his throat and let out the filthiest, most wanton moan that he could manage.

Wade’s muscles seized up as Peter felt the fabric-covered cock in his palm begin to pulse steadily, a metronome of pleasure that he knew was rocking through Wade’s body.  He could feel the knot at the base of Wade’s dick, harder even than the rest of him, and the knowledge that, in one week’s time, that knot would be buried in Peter made the front of Peter’s boxers go damp with precum.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Wade gasped, his whole body shaking against Peter.  “I can’t believe that just...holy shit baby boy…”

Peter laughed as he took his hand back to allow Wade’s sensitive body to recover.  He couldn’t help the excitement he felt pounding through him; he had just done something filthy as hell on top of his own school, during his prom.  It was almost delicious to think of how aroused  _ he _ probably looked, with his bitten lips, messed-up hair and blown pupils.  The idea of walking back into prom like this was enticing.

“I know that you probably don’t feel the same, Petey, but I can’t wait for your heat.  I can’t wait to fuck the living daylights out of you.”

“You’re not going to make this go away any time soon if you talk like that,” Peter chuckled, stepping away from Wade to look down at his own, embarrassingly noticeable erection.

“Aaannd…I’m getting hard again.”

“What?  Seriously?”

Wade shrugged.  “Super fast refractory period, baby boy.  I can’t help it.”

As much as Peter wanted Wade to fuck him on the roof of his school, it seemed like going a  _ little _ too far.  Especially since he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t yell loud enough for people down on the sidewalk to hear it.  “Save it for my heat next week.”

“Aww, come on.  You got me off. I should return the favor.”  Deadpool’s wheedling voice was tempting, but Peter shook his head.  He wanted control for just one moment. If that meant that he pleased Deadpool but didn’t get anything in return, well...it was invigorating to deny himself something.  He wouldn’t be able to deny anything in seven days’ time.

“It’s okay, really.”  Peter paused to readjust himself, then grinned up at Wade’s slack jaw.  “So are you coming back to my place next Friday?”

“It’s going to be Friday?”

“I really have to try not to miss any more school, so I’m aiming for as close to Friday afternoon as possible.”

Deadpool returned the grin and folded his arms.  “Instead of your shitty apartment -- no offense -- I have a better idea.  I’ll text you the details.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.  That way your auntie doesn’t have to vamoose for the duration of the Peter scream-a-thon.”

Peter scoffed at the description, but he had to admit it was a good idea.  “Okay.”

For a moment, they just stood there, a slight awkwardness creeping into the situation, like as if they had just made out on a conference table and then solidified a business deal after.  Then, Wade ( _ bless him _ ) broke the silence by going, “Shit!  I almost forgot!” and walking away to pick up something from the edge of the roof.

It was the flower that had caught Peter’s attention.

Now that it was up close, Peter could see that it was a daffodil, maybe one of the many that had started cropping up around New York now that spring time was on its way.  Wade grinned as he snapped off the long stem, leaving just a few inches behind, and attached it to Peter’s boutonniere.

“This looks awful with your Millennium Falcon pocket square, baby boy.”  The daffodil was gaudy and stood out from the other simple flowers in the ensemble -- Peter had picked out pink roses and baby’s breath to go along with the corsage he’d gotten for MJ -- but he still couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off his face at having the little yellow trumpet-shaped bloom jutting out proudly from his lapel.

“I hope you have a good time at the dance.”

Wade planted a chaste kiss to the top of Peter’s hair before fixing the out-of-place strands.  Then he rolled down his mask.

“I will.”

Suddenly, on the other side of the roof, the maintenance door that led out from inside the building banged open.  A beam of flashlight blazed at them. “Hey! What are you doing up here?” someone yelled.

Wade stepped in front of Peter to block him from view of the teacher/security/whoever had the audacity to ruin their moment.  “Get out of here, baby boy,” he hissed, and gently pushed Peter back toward the edge of the roof.

“Hey!” the voice yelled again.

“See you next week,” Peter said quickly, and cast Wade a last glance.  The beam from the flashlight was casting Wade’s face in shadow, creating a corona of light around the mercenary’s head, like a halo.

Peter rolled up his right sleeve slightly, turned, and jumped off the roof.  He shot a web at the massive tree, caught a branch, and swung up onto a giant limb.  Then he scrambled around the side of the limb, which was as wide as he was, and clung to it, hidden from the roof.

Sure enough, a moment later, the flashlight was searching for him, shining down on the ground and around the base of the tree.  After a minute they gave up, unable to find Peter amongst the branches. When he was sure it was clear, he nimbly jumped down onto the soft, squelchy grass.

“Is that mud on your shoes?” MJ asked curiously when he finally caught up with them inside.

“Why do you look like you’ve just run a bunch or something?  Are you sure there wasn’t a bad guy? Did you have a fight?” Ned chattered on, holding a cup of punch that Peter almost hoped  _ was _ spiked.

“Nope.  Everything is good.  False alarm,” Peter lied easily.  Even though his friends knew about Wade -- knew that he was the man who was helping Peter through his heats -- he wasn’t quite ready to tell them anything else yet.  Something in his life had to stay private.

It was the first night in a long time where Peter just enjoyed himself.  The things he normally would have been thinking about, like the botched mission, his near-death...for a moment, they weren’t important.  He was also sure that somewhere, in the big wide city that was New York, there was something bad happening. And sure, it was his responsibility to do something about it.  But for once, he just wanted to obey his responsibility to other things. To his friends, to his social life, to Wade.

They danced -- even MJ danced -- until Peter and Ned had loosened their Star Wars neckties, until the mud on Peter’s shoes had dried and flaked off, and until even Peter’s endless stamina was wearing thin.  Then, they collapsed into some folding chairs at the edge of the room and watched Flash make a fool of himself by trying to do the worm. Peter let his head rest against the wall. His left arm was slung over the back of Ned’s chair, and MJ’s legs were crossed over Peter and Ned’s laps.  They talked about teachers, the dresses that they liked, and the horrible music that the hired deejay was providing. For once, Peter was just happy.

When he got home a little after midnight, creeping so he wouldn’t disturb Aunt May, he was still riding the high of the evening.  As he undressed, his hand came to his boutonniere. 

He had lost his erection hours ago, but the soft petals of the daffodil instantly brought back the thoughts of what had happened on the roof.  For a moment, he stood there, recalling how Wade felt went he came.

Out of curiosity, Peter grabbed his phone and Googled “language of flowers daffodil.”  He clicked on one of the first websites that came up.

_ Daffodil - regard; unrequited love; you’re the only one; the sun is always shining when I’m with you. _

Twenty minutes later, Peter shoved his pillow into his mouth to stop him from calling out Wade’s name as he pulsed hard onto his own stomach.  

The only way it would have been a better night is if Wade had been inside him as he came.

 

~~~~~

Peter had always known that good things must come to an end.

When he woke up Saturday morning, the notification light on his phone was blinking.  He rolled over, tapped the screen awake, and saw three missed calls -- from Tony Stark.  There was a text message, too.

**When you get this, call me ASAP.  -TS**

Peter sat up and fumbled the phone to his ear as it placed a call to the billionaire.  The man picked up on the third ring.

“M-Mr. Stark?” Peter croaked through his morning voice.  He swallowed hastily. “It’s me.”

Tony didn’t seem to want to waste any time.  “Hey, kid. Sorry to do this to you, but I need to meet up with you.  You got time to, um... _ swing _ ...by the Queens Library at Forest Hills?”

Peter frowned.  “Like, literally swing?  Because I could get there in a few minutes if I run.”

“With this, I’d rather been seen talking to Spider-Man than to Peter Parker.”

“Okay,” Peter responded, but the line cut out on the other end.  “Okay,” he repeated, to himself. His heart picked up the pace as his mind started flying through probable reasons why Tony Stark would want to talk to Spider-Man at Queens Library.

Maybe Mr. Stark was firing him from the Avengers, and he wanted to be seen doing it publicly as a way to show the world that he was blaming Spider-Man for what happened in Canada.  The moment he thought of it, he swallowed his flash of anger, and felt shameful instead. Mr. Stark wouldn’t do that to him, no matter how angry he was. At least not without talking to Peter first.

_ Besides, _ he thought glumly,  _ I’m not really an Avenger.  I’m kind of on the B-squad. _

Peter tore open his dresser drawer and pulled out his suit, the fabric one that Mr. Stark had given him years earlier, and pulled it on.  The Iron Spider costume was back at the Avengers facility upstate for the time being. It was clearly supposed to be for special occasions, though Peter wondered if he’d ever get a chance to don it again after how royally he’d screwed up.

As Peter punched the spider drone on the front of his suit to tighten the material, he heard a knock on his door.

“Peter?  How was prom?” Aunt May called from the other side.

“It was good, May!  Uh...can’t really talk now.”

There was a pause.  “Are you leaving?”

“I’m just -- ”  Before Peter could finish, however, the doorknob turned and Aunt May peeked her head in.  She looked tired, with her reddish-brown hair pulled up in a messy bun and her glasses at the end of her nose.

Peter clutched the mask in his hand, knowing that the last thing Aunt May probably wanted to see was him suiting up first thing on a Saturday morning.  Instead of the chastising that he thought he was about to get, however, she simply met his eyes, sighed, and pushed the door open the rest of the way.

Two steps later, she had him wrapped in a hug.

“Can’t you stop being heroic for five minutes?” she murmured, and gave him a tight squeeze.  Peter clutched her bathrobe and hugged her hard -- not hard enough to hurt her -- and shook his head in lieu of a proper response.

May released him and held him at arm’s length.  “All right, kid. You coming back for lunch?”

“I think so.”

“Don’t forget about your homework.  I want it done before tomorrow night, Mister.”

“Of course, May.”

For a moment, it looked like his aunt might have something else to say.  Instead, she gave him a small smile and gestured toward the window. “Go on.  Be safe. Run away from anything that could kill you.”

The window slid open easily and he put one leg out on the fire escape.  “That’s no fun, May.”

“Peter...”

“Kidding.”  He nimbly ducked out of his room and out into the cool April morning.  When he slid the window down, his aunt was no longer on the other side of it.  A small pang of guilt hit his stomach, but he didn’t have time to feel bad just now.  Instead, he climbed up onto the edge of the fire escape, slung a webline across the street, and jumped.

He arrived at the Queens Library of Forest Hills in a matter of minutes.  Of course, he got several confused stares as he landed in front of the concrete steps leading up to the red brick building.  It was on the cloudy side today, but Peter had seen when the sun cast strange shadows with the QUEENS LIBRARY lettering above the doors.  Uncle Ben had taken him to this library frequently to check out comic books and do community events when Peter was a kid, especially right after his parents had died.

All in all, it hadn’t changed.  Except for the Audi parked out front and the billionaire who was drawing some equally confused stares.

Peter straightened up from his crouched landing and folded his arms.  “Are we going inside?”

“I thought we could talk in the car.”

“Why did we come to the library, then?”

“Long story.  Let’s talk.” Mr. Stark stepped away from the side of the car and pulled the door open for Peter to get in.  When Peter slid onto the seat, it was the same prolonged  _ shhh _ sound as when MJ had gotten into the backseat of his car -- except these seats weren’t  _ faux _ leather, they were real.

Tony got in on the driver’s side and put his hands on the wheel, but didn’t start the car.  Instead, he just looked over at Peter like he was distracted, smiled awkwardly, and said, “Aren’t weekends the best?  You start off with a good cup of coffee, get a nice workout in -- ”

“I’m going to stop you there,” Peter interrupted, holding up his gloved hand.  “This sounded urgent. Is it about the mission? Are you firing me from the Avengers?  Because I have to say, I don’t think I deserve that.”

Tony inhaled deeply through his nose.  “First of all -- no. You’re not getting kicked off the team.  The Avengers have botched missions before and I’m sure we’ll botch more in the future.  Second of all, you’re right -- it’s not your fault, anyway, because I have a pretty good suspicion that we were set up.  I’m not sure if it was the Canadian government, if it was Hydra leaking us information that we mistook for intelligence, who knows?  But you did what I told you to, and you got captured, and that’s on me.” Peter didn’t miss the regret in Tony’s voice, but he didn’t let Tony off easy by telling him it was all right.  Because it wasn’t, really.

“Yeah, I was pretty damn scared, if I have to be honest.”

“I don’t blame you.”  Tony reached into his breast pocket of his well-tailored suit and pulled out something small and glass.  The vial from the Hydra laboratory.

“Did you analyze that?”  It was impossible to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

“Yep.  It turns out that it  _ is _ a nerve agent -- Agent Romanov told me that Karen thought it was -- but a highly specialized one.  Intended to affect only one person.”

Peter chewed the inside of his lip under the mask.  “Who’s that?” he managed, mouth suddenly dry.

“Three guesses.”  Mr. Stark placed the vial into Peter’s hand.  Wrapped around the outside of the vial, in a printed label, were the words SPIDER-MAN.

The vial had been clearly washed thoroughly, but Peter still turned it in his hands, staring at the seemingly-innocuous little glass container.  “How...how did they...I mean, how could they formulate a nerve agent to work on me only? They must have had my DNA or something.”

Tony shrugged.  “You’re out there on the street all the time, fighting people.  You don’t think you ever got blood on something?”

Peter thought of something.  “Dr. Johanneson -- the guy who trapped me -- he said that Hydra agents had tried to kill me before.”

“I’m sure.  And it could have been one of them that got a sample.  The good news is that since you’re not personally in any criminal database or anything, they still can’t identify you as Peter Parker.  But -- ”

Peter didn’t need Tony to finish to know where this was going.  “-- But they know Spider-Man is an Omega.”

The billionaire looked out the window.  “That’s one concern. The other is that they tried to use this on you at all.  Obviously they mean business. And unfortunately, they mean business with a lot of us.”  He looked at Peter seriously. “They had formulas for other Avengers in that case.”

“For you?”

“I don’t know.  That was probably just one case of many.  But it had multiple vials for you, as well as for Banner, Rhodey, and Cap.”

“All nerve agents?”

“They appear to be.  Now, we don’t really know if they’re all successful formulas -- obviously we’re not going to test them out on anybody.  And, thank God we didn’t get to know if the formula was going to be successful in killing you.”

Peter shifted against the leather seat and stared down at the vial in his hands.  “It would have been,” he said softly.

“Beg your pardon?”

“It would have killed me, Mr. Stark.”  He looked up at Tony, whose brown eyes were soft and concerned.  “My...you know my spider-sense? It was going off like crazy. It  _ hurt _ .  My spider-sense thought I was going to die.  I think the nerve agent would have worked, if you hadn’t given me the other suit to wear.”

Tony Stark looked broken.  He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.  “Fucking Christ, Pete. I should not have taken you on that mission.”

“Hey.”  Peter grabbed Tony’s shoulder.  “You saved my life. That suit saved my life.  Besides -- if they were working on that weapon, they could have used it another time, when I was just out in the city, when I wasn’t expecting anything.  When I  _ wasn’t _ in the Iron Spider suit.  Now we know what we’re up against.”

Tony shook his head.  “I know one thing for sure.  You’re getting the Iron Spider suit again until we know that this nerve agent is not a threat anymore.”  He picked up his phone from the center console of the car and thumbed in a text message. “I’m getting Happy to drop it off at your apartment later today.”

“Thanks.”  Peter took one more look at the vial, then held it out to the billionaire.

“No way.  I don’t want it back.  You take that as a souvenir, kid.  I don’t think my psyche could handle it.”

“Okay.”  Peter twisted in his seat and slid the vial into an empty spot on his belt.  For a long moment, nobody said anything.

“Mr. Stark?  Why did we choose the library again?”

“Hmm?  Oh, I uh...may have told the librarian that she could get a rare photo op of Tony Stark and Spider-Man holding books and encouraging kids to read.”

“...Okay?”

Mr. Stark tapped his hands on the steering wheel with a note of finality and grabbed the handle of the door.  “Call it easing my conscience.”

 

~~~~

 

The next week seemed to fly by.  Peter knew that the likelihood of him being out of class the Monday after his heat weekend was pretty high, especially since his last heat had endured for four days.  As such, he worked ahead on assignments as much as possible and spent almost every night holed up in his room until late hours, the lamp over his desk humming with an electric current that only Peter could hear.  Although Happy had dropped off the Iron Spider suit in its heavy case the same afternoon that Peter had met with Tony at the library, he hadn’t taken it out on patrol at all. Instead, it sat under his bed, along with a couple tattered comic books that the old librarian at Queens Library had given him in return for posing with some of her favorite works of literature.  When Peter had gotten home that day and told Aunt May what he’d been doing out on the town, she’d hugged him enthusiastically, thanked the Lord that Peter hadn’t been doing anything more dangerous, and put extra bacon on his BLT.

When Thursday rolled around, he took his normal Phase 2 dose in the morning.  But he wanted to time his heat so that it hit him as soon after school on Friday as possible.  So, around 3 pm on Thursday, he took his last Phase 2 dose. He could tell that they shouldn’t have been taken so close together (he definitely struggled to hold down his dinner), but he wanted the dose to run out strategically so that he could maximize his time in heat over the weekend.  If he was lucky, he could get back to school by Tuesday.

On Friday morning before he left his apartment, he got a text message from Wade.

**Meet me at The Pond in Central Pk by 5th Ave M after school.**

It would take Peter a while to get there by public transportation -- he went to Midtown School of Science and Technology, but it was actually located pretty far from Midtown Manhattan -- and instead, he wore his fabric suit under his button-up shirt and sweater so he could swing there.  In his backpack, he stowed away extra clothes, soap (he had no idea where Wade was taking him), his phone charger, and cash for food, along with his school books. When he kissed Aunt May goodbye, she gave him a hard squeeze and wished him luck for the weekend.

Ned and MJ voiced similar sentiments as he said goodbye to them after the school day.

It still took him a little bit of time to get from Forest Hills in Queens over to Central Park, especially since he had to cross the East River to get there.  By the time he managed to reach the southeast corner of the park, find a place to throw on his hoodie and jeans over his suit, and get to the Pond, it was already almost 3:45.

Wade didn’t trigger his Spidey-sense when he came up behind Peter.  As a result, Peter nearly elbowed him in the face when the man wrapped his arms around Peter’s torso affectionately.

“Hey, hey!  It’s just me,” Wade said reassuringly as Peter stopped flailing.

“Jesus, Wade, you scared me.”

“Sorry, baby boy.  I just saw your ass from behind and couldn’t resist getting my hands on you right away.”

Wade’s voice was muffled, coming from behind a flimsy surgical mask.  Otherwise, the man was wearing a similar gray hoodie and blue jeans, as if he and Peter had been on the same wavelength.  Almost every inch of Wade’s skin was covered, including his hands. Only his brown eyes were really visible above the surgical mask and below the end of his hood.

“Why are we meeting here?”

The man’s eyes crinkled with excitement.  “Well, I know that the last heat was pretty unceremonious.  And I figure that you like to be a little more romantic. So I thought that this time, I’d wine and dine you first.”

Peter stared at Wade.  “What? Seriously?”

“Yep.  I booked a pretty swanky table at a restaurant over by Times Square.  And judging by your scent, we’ve still got at least a couple hours to enjoy before we’ll need to get you back to the hotel.”

Peter felt the color rising in his cheeks.  “You can smell me? Do I smell like an Omega going into heat?  The people at school don’t know yet -- ”

“Shh, calm down.  You don’t smell like an Omega exactly, no.  It’s hard to explain. I’ll tell you later.”  Wade’s eyes crinkled again. “For right now, baby boy, all I want you to worry about is having a good, romantic time.  I’ll take care of you.” He held out a gloved hand.

Although Peter knew that he was getting feelings for Wade beyond the necessities of his heat, he couldn’t help but stare at the hand for a moment as it was offered to him.  He’d never held hands with a man before. He’d never really held hands romantically, actually.

Wade kept it extended, and after a moment, Peter took it, allowing his fingers to curl into the spaces between Wade’s.

“All right, Petey, let’s paint the town red.”


	13. Hurt Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE. ANOTHER CHAPTER.
> 
> So, in all seriousness, I usually find I can write smut a lot faster, because it usually doesn't forward the plot too much. So I don't have to think about it a ton when writing.  
> But I'm giving you another chapter today for a couple reasons. 1) I was really ahead on writing, so I finished this today and felt like posting.  
> This is partially because I had a rough week last week and all of your comments on the previous chapter made me feel validated (I may be a comments whore). 2) I will not be in town for a good part of this week and the weekend, so it may be another two weeks before you get another chapter, because I'm not planning on taking my computer with me.
> 
> However, I AM planning on taking my phone on this trip. So, I had an idea. If anybody wants to ask me any questions, I'll do a Q&A in the comments of this chapter. I just had the idea in case anybody wants to know more about the story, about me, about whatever. That way I can still interact with you guys over the next couple weeks, even if I don't get the chance to post.
> 
> Thanks for all being lovely and supportive people!

 

___WADE

 

When he was younger and far, _far_ better-looking, Wade had managed to get with pretty much any beautiful person that he’d wanted to.  Sometimes he took them out on dates, sometimes they simply went back to his apartment and fucked. After the whole turning-into-a-superhuman-avocado thing, Wade’s dating chances had been a little thin on the ground.  But still, as he dragged Peter Parker through the streets of Manhattan on the cloudy April afternoon, there was no date in his life that seemed to quite compare to this.

[ _We’re dreaming,_ ] White said on more than one occasion as Peter and Wade made their way out of Central Park, to the 5th Avenue subway station, and down the line until they got out just north of Times Square.  Of course, it was full of thousands of people, it seemed, mostly schmuck tourists. But nothing dampened the way the massive advertisements sort of glittered off Peter’s eyes as they walked. God, every time Peter moved his head, Wade caught another whiff of the kid’s scent.  The muddy and dangerous smell was still dominant, but there, growing stronger, was the hint of clean spice, like someone took a sachet of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper and was waving it around in a wide open, breezy field. Those notes had been there probably since Peter had started taking his Phase 2 heat regulators.  Wade had certainly smelled them on top of the high school, where his baby boy had gotten him off like the beautiful hero he was.

He didn’t smell like an Omega yet, though.  Omega and Alpha pheromones were like adding alcohol to a fruit juice blend.  They didn’t make up most of the flavor -- they just added the intoxication. And so far, Wade wasn’t getting drunk.

{ _We’re just getting high on this kid’s smile._ }

[ _Are YOU having feelings, Yellow?_ ]

{ _Shut up._ }

They weaved their way through the crowded sidewalks.  Sometimes it was difficult to walk side-by-side in parts of New York, so Wade disentangled his hand from Peter’s and instead pulled the kid up to his side.  He gently cupped the side of Peter’s head with his gloved hand, his palm covering Peter’s ear, hoping that it would block out some of the overwhelming sounds of the city.  He relished how busy and dirty it all was, of course, but he knew that Petey’s senses were on another level. After a minute of walking, Wade felt the kid relax into his side.  Their feet fell in time together, despite Wade’s longer stride, and an arm wrapped around Wade’s back.

God, he could get used to this romantic shit.

The restaurant that Wade had picked was pretty much the most expensive place in Manhattan where they could still get in wearing hoodies and jeans and carrying backpacks.  When they sat down at a secluded booth near the back, Wade passed Peter a menu and couldn’t help but smile as the younger man’s eyes went wide at the prices.

“Oh my God Wade there is no way I can afford this,” the kid murmured in one long sentence under his breath.  

“Don’t worry about it, baby boy.  This is all on me. I brought you out on this date.”  

The waiter, whose outfit matched the general fanciness of the establishment, gave a shallow smile as he sidled up to the table.

“The specials today are stuffed crab cakes with a lemon caper sauce over a bed of baby asparagus and quinoa, and the 12-ounce filet mignon with a side of maple-braised potatoes and purple carrots.  Can I get you started with something to drink?”

Wade dug a gloved finger over the edge of his mask and pulled it down slightly to speak.  “I’ll have a glass of Jameson on the rocks and a glass of water.” He let his mask move back into place and raised his eyebrows at Peter, who looked pale and terrified just to be sitting in such an expensive place.

“Uh, I’ll have a...water, thanks.”

The waiter nodded curtly and strode away.

Peter’s attention snapped back to Wade.  “You cannot pay for all of this, Wade. I didn’t expect you to take me to the goddamn fanciest place in New York City!”

“I definitely didn’t.  The fanciest place in New York City probably wouldn’t even let Giuliani in.  The only way either of us would get in is if Tony Stark escorted us in like arm candy.”  Wade frowned. “Well, _you’d_ be arm candy, _I’d_ be arm shredded beef.”

[ _You really don’t think the fanciest place in New York would let in Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani?_ ]

{ _Hey now.  Let’s not get involved in real-world politics.  I can barely keep up with what’s going on in our own storyline._ }

Peter still didn’t look comfortable.  He sat bone-straight against the back of the booth and looked around like he was expecting someone to kick him out at any moment.

Wade had to feel a little bad for the kid.  After all, Wade hadn’t always had much either, and he knew what it felt like to be the odd person out.  And the prices were pretty intimidating, if it was more money than Peter was used to spending on a week’s worth of food.  “Tell you what, Petey. Let’s order those specials. You get one, I’ll get the other. If they’re really good, we’ll do that adorable thing where we feed each other bites off our forks.  That way, you don’t need to stare down those prices on the menu.”

“Okay.”

God, he was fucking cute.

“Hey, did Stark apologize for that shitshow of a mission?” Wade blurted out, suddenly remembering their fight back at the Avengers facility upstate.  He’d cussed out Stark for a solid twenty minutes about how he’d almost gotten Peter killed. For once, Stark had actually seemed to almost listen to him, too.  Maybe the guy really did care about Peter, although he sometimes had a funny way of showing it.

Peter shrugged as the waiter came up to them with their drinks, pausing until the man had walked back out of earshot.  “Yeah, he said it was his fault. It was bad information or something. I don’t really blame him, even though I kind of felt like they just sent me in there without much preparation.”

“It didn’t just _feel_ that way, baby boy; it _was_ that way.  Stark did not do that one very well.”

“Well, I guess even Mr. Stark makes mistakes.”

Wade growled and tossed back his whiskey in two swallows.  “I kinda wish he wouldn’t make mistakes that involve putting your life on the line, though.”

Peter quirked his messed-up eyebrow and smiled.  “You starting to like me, Deadpool?” he whispered.

The empty whiskey glass hit the table a little harder than he’d intended.  “Starting to, yeah,” Wade answered, suddenly wishing he had another whiskey.

Peter grinned and pushed his menu to the side.  “Let me tell you about what Mr. Stark had us do _after_ he apologized, though, at the Queens Library…”

It was almost easy to forget, as Wade listened to the eighteen-year-old talk, as he ordered and downed whiskey after whiskey, as they dug into their delicious food when it came, that the wining and dining that Wade had resolved to treat Peter to was leading up to a weekend of merciless biological mania.  Talking to Peter was easy. Listening to Peter was easier. He wanted it to be as organic as possible, not brought on by necessity.

Of course, Peter’s heat was coming, there was no doubt about it.  Wade could feel the headiness starting about halfway through dinner, and it had nothing to do with the whiskey Wade was drinking -- after all, it took much more than this to get him even remotely buzzed.  Peter’s pheromones were still underwhelming enough that only Wade could feel the effects of them, he was sure. All the same, he made a mental note to watch the time and ask for the check soon.

The good news was that Peter didn’t seem to be nearly as aware of it as Wade was.  It was just his demeanor slowly changing; Wade noticed how the kid gradually slid down the back of his chair, how his body language opened up, how the kid’s eyes kept lingering on Wade distractedly.

All the same, Wade was determined not to let his baby boy stress about the evening.  He kept the conversation casual. They switched to talking about parts of New York they liked the most, and Wade mentioned his safe houses distractedly as Peter finished his last bite of quinoa and licked the spoon clean.

“How many safe houses do you have?” Peter asked, sliding the back of his spoon over the grain of the wood table surface.   _Why_ was that so sexy?  Wade blinked and focused on the question.

“Too many, baby boy.  The problem with having so many houses is that none of them feel like home.”

Peter nodded, his eyes resting on the place where Wade’s hand was on the table.  “I don’t remember my home when I lived with my parents,” he said suddenly. Then, he straightened up a little.  “Well, that’s not entirely true. I remember a brown fence. Lots of trees. My parents died when I was six. I went to live with Aunt May and Uncle Ben after that.  Then Uncle Ben died.”

Wade had heard about Peter’s Uncle Ben, but he didn’t know all the details as to how the man had kicked it.  The moment he opened his mouth, though, Peter shook his head hurriedly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The simple action of Peter shaking his head from side to side caused another wave of headiness to wash over Wade.  All right, it was probably time to go. Rather than ask for the check, Wade pulled Peter out of the booth and they paid in cash at the front desk before making their way back out onto the busy streets of Manhattan.

The subway station they wanted was only a couple blocks away, but it seemed really far when he already kind of wanted to bend the kid over and fuck him five ways from Friday.  Wade tuned out the boxes as they discussed different landmarks in New York City on which they should fuck Spidey. He could keep it together until they got to the hotel. He _had_ to.

Especially since he could sense Peter starting to come undone.

Peter had taken his hand before they descended the steps down into the subway.  As they waited for the train, the kid’s fingers got tighter around Wade’s gloves.  Wade willed himself to look over at Peter’s face, which was half-hidden by his gray hoodie.  He could see pink, parted lips, and could hear Peter’s very slightly quickened breath, passing between them.

As the air shifted in the station, indicating that the train was coming, Peter’s scent pushed past Wade’s face with the gust of wind.

[ _Oh._ ]

{ _Oh God._ }

“Oh God,” Wade echoed.  The muddy, dangerous scent was nearly gone from his baby boy.  Instead, the clean spice was reaching a plateau, just close to tumbling into an overwhelming wave of scent.  Peter was starting to come across like an Omega now, but his heat wasn’t quite there yet. It was as though it was waiting patiently, just around the corner, teasing Wade...teasing Peter, if the tight grip on Wade’s hand was any indication.

As the train slid to a stop in front of them, Peter looked up.  His mouth was still slightly open, and his pupils had started to dilate.

Wade pulled Peter onto the train as the doors slid open, ducking ahead of people as they filtered on and off the car.  In a moment, he had Peter between him and the corner of the car, where he could box Peter in, protect him, and shield him almost entirely from view.

It wasn’t a moment too soon.

Peter buried his face in Wade’s sweatshirt, and then, a second later, the kid’s hips found Wade’s thigh.  Oh fuck, Petey was hard.

As the train started moving, so did Peter.  Wade held him close, wrapping one arm around the teenager, while the other arm steaded them against the wall of the train.  It was a wild challenge in stability to stay steady while Peter rolled his hips in tiny, almost unnoticeable motions against Wade.  No one else could see what was happening, although they could probably smell an Omega very near heat and an Alpha that was getting turned on by it.  Like good New Yorkers, though, they kept to their own business and didn’t look in their direction.

Peter’s whole body was pressing up against Wade, releasing, pressing up again.  All the while, the kid’s breaths were getting faster, shakier in Wade’s sweatshirt.  It was ridiculously hot -- Peter was rutting against him on a goddamn subway car -- but it was almost hotter to know that Peter could probably feel Wade’s hard cock as easily as Wade could feel Peter’s.  Especially, since Peter’s abdomen kept rubbing against it deliciously.

Then, without much warning, Peter tightened in front of him, and then he was shuddering, shaking in quiet, desperate release, his teeth biting down on Wade’s sweatshirt.

Wade might never have experienced anything so goddamn sexy in his whole entire miserable life.  Until, that is, Peter started again, not ten seconds later. Jesus Christ, the kid was still rock-hard.  Faster than the first time, Peter rocked himself to a peak, shuddered against Wade, and began once more.

“Woah, woah, baby boy,” Wade mouthed against Peter’s hairline, “Calm down, okay?  We’re almost there.”

Peter’s heat was tantalizingly close.  Wade couldn’t smell slick yet, but the headiness of the pheromones permeating the kid’s clothes was unreal.  And the fact that Peter had worked himself to two orgasms in the span of a few minutes, and was escalating himself rapidly toward a third, was telling.  He had no refractory period, which meant he was probably now hitting the stage where he was unable to find relief unless he was being knotted.

“Baby boy, calm -- ” Wade tried, but he stopped himself as Peter’s hands twisted in the front of Wade’s sweatshirt and the kid shook, harder even than before, for a third time.  Peter might have started again, had their stop not been announced. Wade gripped Peter by the rib cage to keep their pelvises separate as the train slowed to a stop. Peter was simply panting quietly, his head hanging down, hands still gripping Wade’s sweatshirt, jeans looking painfully tight over an obvious bulge in the front.

Finally, the train lurched, and they joined the crowd making their way to the surface.  They had less than a block to go on the street until they’d get to their hotel -- the Ritz-Carlton New York, Central Park.  It was going to be all the best for his baby boy.

Of course, as they dashed across the street to get there, Wade felt Peter’s grip go so strong that it felt, for a moment, like it would crush the bones in Wade’s hand.  They hit the sidewalk and Wade looked over. Peter’s face was pale. “Wade,” he said finally, after not speaking since the restaurant. “I hope we’re almost there because…” he shook his head vigorously.

In the breeze, Wade could smell slick on the air.

“So close, baby boy.  Just stay with me.” He steered Peter in front of him and took the kid by the shoulder instead.  The doormen at the Ritz-Carlton initially gave them the side-eye (they _were_ wearing hoodies and jeans), but as soon as it was obvious that Wade and Peter were going inside, the doormen mastered their surprised expressions and made way.

It had never taken so long to check into a hotel in Wade’s life.  Especially since Peter was slowly breathing in and out beside him, shivering.  Whether he was shivering as an involuntary response to hitting his heat, or whether it was because the front of his pants had three coats of jizz and the back was slowly soaking up slick, Wade couldn’t be sure.  Either way, when the receptionist finally handed them their room key, Wade wasted no time. He scooped Peter up like a doll and carried him to the elevator. There was no point in trying to survive on pretense; everyone in the lobby could smell Peter’s desperation.  He just hoped that Peter’s hood was saving his dignity a little, even if it was unlikely that anyone in this expensive-ass hotel would recognize a high school senior from Queens.

 Peter’s left hand dug into the side of Wade’s neck, holding on as they made it to the elevators.  A group of businessmen were waiting, too, but they had the decency to step aside and let Wade take the first available lift.  It felt like both Peter and Wade were holding their breath as the doors closed; as soon as they slid shut, Peter’s head fell back and he groaned like a wounded animal.

{ _The second we’re in that hotel room, we had better whip out our dick and take this kid on the floor._ }

“Yes,” Wade breathed in agreement, staring at Peter’s exposed neck.  The pheromones were making his knees shake. Unable to resist, Wade bent down and ran his tongue over that delicious bump in Peter’s throat.  The fingers at Wade’s neck tightened so hard that he was sure there would be bruises there.

When they finally got the hotel room door, Wade gently let Peter’s legs fall as he fished out the key card from his pocket.  Everything seemed in slow motion as he stuffed the card into the reader, waited for the light to turn green, forced the door open with a _click_ that went straight to his jeans.

The door closed shut behind them.

  


~~~~~~

 

____PETER

 

He was barely keeping it together.

Behind him, he could hear -- he could _feel_ \-- Wade stripping himself down, sending wave after wave of Alpha pheromones into the hotel room.  Peter had never been in a hotel this extravagant, this impressive, but none of it mattered at the moment.  He couldn’t have cared less whether he was about to be thrown down on a gilded king-sized bed or a dirty old sofa.  All that mattered was that Wade fill the emptiness that was blooming inside of him like an old wound torn open again.

There was far too much happening for Peter to even think about what to do to make it go faster.  He knew that he, too, should be removing his clothes, but somehow his fingers weren’t quite working.  He pulled his hoodie up halfway before another wave of pheromones -- and a corresponding pulse of slick -- made him lean against the wall.  It was so, so tempting just to sink to his knees and rub himself against the floor until he came again, even though his logical mind told him it wouldn’t bring him any relief.  The sticky mess in the front of his suit was proof of that.

Wade’s hands were not a moment too soon.  Peter saw flashes of skin as firm arms pulled Peter’s hoodie off roughly.

“Get this suit off, baby boy,” came a deep growl that made Peter’s own throat want to reciprocate.  It was as simple as following orders; Peter’s hand found the spider drone on the front of his chest and pushed it, causing the whole thing to loosen around him.  Fingers that seemed far stronger than his own dug into the material and slid it down his shoulders, down his torso, until it was gathered at the top of his jeans.  But Wade didn’t unbutton Peter’s pants. Instead, he simply forced the denim and the suit down, hard, making Peter’s cock bend down and bob back up once it was free.  Not only was his dick plastered with cum, but he was precumming, too. He could almost feel each drop forming at the tip of the head, welling up until it was too heavy for itself and it had to drip down onto the thick carpet.  The sensation made Peter’s eyes flutter shut.

Then, a palm on the back of his neck pushed Peter forward toward the floor.  Blindly, he threw out his hands to catch himself as Wade made him go to his knees.  Just as quickly as he found himself on all fours, he felt a hand drag trails of fire down his spine, over the curve of his tailbone and the mound of his ass, until it was at his entrance.

Peter was panting into the carpet, his forehead pressed against the luxurious fibers, and opened his eyes to see the world upside-down.  Hanging down between his legs, impossibly swollen, impossibly hard, was his own cock. He knew it was bigger in heat, and he could clearly see that now.  It had to be at least an inch longer than it would be normally. It had darkened to an impressive color that reminded him just how painfully full of blood he was.  Another pearl of precum hung from him, quivering in the same way that every muscle in Peter’s body was quivering.

It had taken hours for his heat to slowly build.  He had felt it coming, a little. It was the first time that his heat had come on in a natural way, without being induced suddenly, so it was difficult to know what to expect.  But the gradual sharpening of his senses beyond what he could expect even from his powers had been a good cue. There had also been the slow coiling of desire in his chest, a growing tension between him and Wade that had started innocently enough, before it started filling Peter’s head with filthy thoughts that he had to shut down for fear of getting hard at dinner.  He had been thankful to Wade for keeping the conversation going, for making everything as normal as possible. Maybe Wade hadn’t even noticed Peter’s descent into his heat. Or, at least, Peter had thought that, until Wade had quickly removed them both from the restaurant and started their trek back to the hotel.

The subway...God, the subway had been torture.  Peter had felt his heat starting to boil as they waited for the train.  His skin felt hot, and he cursed himself for wearing two layers. Then, when he felt the blood pool in his groin, more blood than with a usual erection -- he had simultaneously wanted to fuck something, to be fucked, and to disappear out of embarrassment.  The smell of Wade’s sweatshirt when the mercenary had pinned him against the wall of the subway car had stolen the rest of his control, and he’d keened into Wade’s thigh, again and again, only to be maddened by the way that no relief came when his orgasm ripped through him.

He could only be thankful that the devouring emptiness -- the thing he’d come to associate with his heat the most -- had waited to begin eating his insides until the two of them had surfaced from the station and started across the street towards the Ritz-Carlton.  He had wanted to collapse in the middle of the road then, to cry out with the desperation, the _loneliness_ that had gripped him.  Instead, he kept going, only held Wade’s hand tightly when he felt the emptiness trigger that first, thick drip of lubrication from inside him.

Now, slick ran down the insides and backs of his thighs, reflecting the ceiling lamp of the hotel room, framing his dark, painful erection with two thin bars of light that started from his pelvis and went to the floor.  

“Please,” Peter whispered.  His voice was thick.

Wade’s fingers were thicker.

There was no starting with one digit this time.  This was an act of lust, an act of mercy. Peter could smell Wade’s rut, could feel the dizziness that came with it.  Maybe Wade hadn’t even tried to stave it off, once they got into the hotel. He secretly hoped that Wade was succumbing to his rut as much as Peter had to succumb to his heat.  He wanted this to be mutual, to be reckless abandon, but reckless abandon _together_.

Two fingers pushed their way inside him, followed by a third a moment later.  Peter’s hands gripped the carpet. Lightning was shooting up his spine, illuminating every thread of desire.  He pushed back, groaned open-mouthed into the floor, pushed back again.

Despite being untouched, an orgasm was already curling behind Peter’s cock.  He didn’t even have the willpower to warn Wade about it. Instead, he pushed back again, and again, relishing the fingers in him that didn’t come close to filling the emptiness that sat heavily in his belly.  The delicious pressure reached a peak, and Peter was pulsing, his dick jumping so much with each contraction of his muscles that he felt his own cum hit his chin.

He wanted to collapse into the floor, but he couldn’t.  He couldn’t, not only because Wade’s hand had come around under his chest to support him as the last waves of orgasm shuddered through him, but also because he was Still.  Fucking. Hard.

And so fucking empty.

“Baby boy.”

Wade was talking to him, through what seemed like a cloud of fog in Peter’s head.

“Baby boy.”  A trail of kisses made its way down Peter’s back.

“Baby boy.”  Again, a little more insistent.

“Wade,” Peter breathed, just to acknowledge the plea for his attention.

Tender lips mouthed Peter’s hip.  “Baby boy, I need you to try not to come again.  You’re just going to exhaust yourself. I need you to try to hold back.”  Wade was saying one thing, but his voice was deep, gravelly, full of desire.  

Peter’s arms were shaking.  He couldn’t even lift his head properly to speak.  Instead, he felt his lips brush the carpet. “I can’t.  I can’t. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can, Petey.  You can.”

Peter clenched his eyes shut.  He didn’t remember if the emptiness had been so excruciating before.  Maybe his memory had blocked it out. But he couldn’t block out anything now.  He needed relief.

“Knot me,” he said, and it came out more like a sob.

More kisses on his back.  “I will, I swear. I want to so fucking badly.  You’re just tightening up on me because you’re anxious.  I don’t want to hurt you.”

How Peter could be tight when every muscle in his body was so tired, Peter didn’t know.  All he knew was that, despite Wade’s supportive hand under his chest, he couldn’t stay on all fours any longer.  One after the other, his knees slid back along the carpet, burning his skin with friction, but lowering his hips to the floor.  The carpet was damp under him.

“Petey, are you okay?”

“Hurt me, Wade.”

There was a pause.  “What?”

“If I’m so tight that you’re going to hurt me, then hurt me,” Peter begged.

“I can’t do that, baby boy.  I care too much.”

“You hurt people all the time,” Peter found himself saying.

There was pain in Wade’s voice now.  “Yeah, but you’re different. I care too much about _you_.”

Whether the tears came from Wade’s words, or from the fact that Peter was overwhelmed, exhausted, and being tortured by the emptiness in his body, he didn’t know.  All he knew was that he could feel moisture burning his eyes, and running sideways across the bridge of his nose and down into his hairline.

Wade’s fingers were still inside him, though they had paused their ministrations while Peter had sunk to the floor.  But now, they were slowly, painstakingly pressing into him, stretching him, dragging out of him. Peter could feel Wade lowering himself down onto the floor, next to Peter.  Being a taller man, the mercenary could keep his fingers inside Peter while resting his head on Peter’s shoulder, blocking most of the room from view.

“Shhh.  Relax. I got you.  No one else is here.  It’s just you and me. I’m going to help you.  I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to make you feel better.  Just listen to my voice. Just feel me, caring about you.”

Peter could feel it.  The fingers inside him were firm but gentle.  Wade had lined up his body so that it covered part of Peter’s, made him feel like he was more protected.

“Relax.  Relax.” Peter was so tired.  So tired. But he could feel the tension that he hadn’t been able to pick out before.  He could feel some select muscles, strung taught like a bow. Coaxed by Wade’s voice, he breathed into them, allowed himself to open.  “That’s it, Peter. God, I love feeling you. That’s it, baby boy. Now you’re making room for me.”

The mercenary shifted from him slowly.  “I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere.  I’m just going to knot you, okay? I’m going to slide into you so that you and I can both feel better.  We’re going to come together, okay, Petey?”

A thick forearm worked its way under Peter’s abdomen, so that Peter’s cock was pushed somewhat to the side but his hips were angled upward.  He groaned, maybe more loudly than he’d wanted to, as the fingers pulled out of him. Peter bit his lip against the emptiness in his body as he listened to wet sounds -- Wade lubing himself up with Peter’s slick, perhaps.  Then, a moment later, the head of Wade’s cock was pressing into him.

It was slow, tantalizingly slow, but each inch brought Peter some feeling of fullness.  The emptiness was getting pushed out of him, filled up like a cup filling with warm water.  How far was Wade inside him? Peter could have sworn that Wade was even with Peter’s belly button, if not deeper.  

Then, with a sensation that was both sweet and painful, Peter felt Wade’s knot pressing against his rim.

_Wade was already knotting._

“Petey, I’m not going to get in you more than once,” Wade moaned into Peter’s back.  His slick-covered fingers of his right hand moved up to grip Peter’s bicep. “I want to come with you.  I want you to come when you feel my whole knot.”

It wasn’t so much a request as a necessity.  There was no way that Peter could ever fathom NOT immediately orgasming when his Alpha’s whole knot was inside him.  Sure enough, as the thick bulge of muscle and blood and flesh entered him, centimeter by centimeter, Peter felt it. The feeling of fullness had forced out the loneliness, the emptiness, and now that Wade was still filling him -- more than he could take -- he could feel the orgasm that he hadn’t even known was waiting for him.  Another centimeter. The pressure was building in his stomach. Another centimeter of Wade’s knot. His breath was loud in his own ears. Another centimeter. There was a sweet ache starting in his pelvis.

Another centimeter.  Almost there.

Then, the thickest part of Wade’s knot was in, and the last few centimeters came all at once.

The muscles that Peter had made such an effort to relax all slammed tight again, clenching around Wade like a vice.  He choked on a yell, which was muffled by the carpet, and felt his own cock paint Wade’s forearm with thick cum. Wade’s arm almost hurt under his abdominal muscles, which were pulled so tight he felt like he should have been bent in half.

Wade, likewise, was breathing hard into Peter’s shoulder, like he had run very far, very fast.  The mercenary’s hot cum was spurting into Peter in steady bursts. The hand on Peter’s bicep was bruising him.

As if it had happened long ago, in a dream, the unbearable waves of sensation that Peter had been managing all died away.  Suddenly, they were two men on the floor of a high-end hotel room. The only thing that moved was their breath and the slow ooze of fluids leaking out of both of them.

Peter had been exhausted since he’d come a fourth time, but now that he had finally achieved a reprieve, he’d never come so close to passing out in his life.  The room was swimming around him.

When Wade carefully pulled out of him a few minutes later, stood up, and gently pulled Peter up by his middle, Peter was all but unconscious.  He didn’t even try to make himself easier for Wade to carry. Instead, his feet dragged on the floor as Wade pulled him deeper into the hotel room.

There was the sound of running water.  It seemed to go on for a long time.

Then Peter felt warmth envelop him.

He knew, somewhere in his mind, that he was sitting in water, and he shouldn’t sleep, or he could drown.  But the other part of him was coaxing. _No.  It’s okay.  Wade is here.  Wade won’t let you drown.  Just sleep. Sleep will feel good._

Everything was gone in a moment.

 

~~~~~

 

When Peter woke up, he was lying on something soft.  Yellowish lighting brought the room into view; it was already dark outside the windows of the hotel.

“Wade?” he called tentatively, and pushed himself up onto his elbows.  There was no answer.

Peter looked down at himself.  He was wrapped in an excessively fluffy robe with the Ritz-Carlton emblem sewn onto the left breast pocket.  Wade had pulled back the soft sheets and blanket of the bed and had covered Peter’s feet and legs with them so that he wouldn’t get cold.

He pushed back the blankets and stood gingerly.  There were noticeably sore muscles in his body, but he knew that it would pass.  For now, he was thirsty as hell. As he looked around the hotel room, he realized just how much money Wade had probably spent to book a few nights here.  There were gold accents everywhere, an antique mirror was propped up in the corner, and the furniture was richly upholstered. A massive flat-screen television hung from the wall across from the king-sized bed that Peter had been lying on.  The bathroom was probably the most impressive part, however. It was huge -- more than half the size of the bedroom area -- and included not only a generously-sized shower and a statement bowl sink, but a lavish jacuzzi tub that could easily fit two grown men.  It was probably here, Peter realized, that Wade had bathed him after the first intense wave of his heat. He picked up one of the tiny shampoo bottles on the side of the tub. Lavender and mint. He _did_ smell vaguely herb-y.

Peter grabbed one of the crystal glasses that was by the side of the sink and filled it to the brim with water.  It wasn’t until he had polished off the first glass that he realized how shitty his apartment’s tap water was in comparison to the water in the Ritz-Carlton.  Maybe this was how all Manhattanites lived. He filled the glass two more times before he had finally slaked his parched throat.

When he wandered back into the bedroom, his eyes fell on a piece of paper that he hadn’t noticed before on the bedside stand.

_Went to grab some food.  Banking on your first reprieve being on the long side.  Be back soon!_

“Thank God,” Peter said out loud.  Now that he wasn’t so thirsty, he could already tell that hunger was setting in.  He wasn’t sure what time it was, but his super-human metabolism demanded that he eat every few hours.  And with the intense sex they’d had -- he was probably going to be ravenous soon.

Unless he went back into a wave of heat first.

Peter closed his eyes and threw himself back onto the bed.  It figured that the first time he’d ever stayed in an incredible hotel like this was going to be ruined by the fact that he wouldn’t be able to think straight half the time.  Instead of having a fun, sexy weekend with Wade, it was all necessity. It was all Peter’s body going haywire. It was all because he was an Omega.

_Maybe Wade wouldn’t have taken me here if I wasn’t his problem._

The thought stuck in his brain before he could push it away.  Did Wade actually even like him? Was the mercenary enjoying himself, or was it all up to biology?  As much as Peter knew that it was a strange attraction, he couldn’t deny that he’d become somewhat attached to Wade.  And sure, Deadpool had crashed his apartment to give him a blowjob that one time, but was that just so Peter would feel better about everything?  Was it an act?

“No,” Peter said firmly, to no one.  “He likes me. I know he does.”

But if Wade did truly like Peter, then that left how absolutely infuriating it was that Peter was just a mewling mess for several days out of the month.  Because Omega-in-heat Peter wasn’t the Peter that he wanted to be; it wasn’t him. The Peter that swung around and saved people and was intelligent and was Spider-Man -- that was who he wanted to be.  That’s who he felt like he was. It was like, if Wade wanted to be with Peter, he had to deal with an unreal version of Peter. Like a Jekyll and Hyde scenario, but Hyde was sex-crazed and incoherent, and brought on by a bad genetic lottery more than anything else.

It was while Peter was lying on the bed, feeling sorry for himself, that he felt the first stirrings of his second wave of heat coming on.

“Fucking shit,” he whispered, and threw his forearm over his forehead.  He pressed his eyes shut tighter as he felt his skin slowly get warmer. Then he pressed his thighs together, hard, trying to ignore the tingling sensitivity that told him blood was starting to gather in his crotch.

It was easy to pretend for the first minute or so that he was just aroused normally, that if he waited long enough his erection would go away.  But, like a predictable joke, the punchline hit him eventually -- the first bloom of emptiness in his stomach, followed by an overwhelming feeling of being utterly _alone_.

“Go away,” he moaned, to no one again.  His left hand flattened across his abdomen, as if he could push out the emptiness from the outside.  Of course, he couldn’t -- only an Alpha could make the feeling leave. Right on cue, the thought of an Alpha taking him brought on the first dribble of slick.

Peter suddenly stood up and shed the bathrobe.  It was too nice to ruin with his disgusting fluids.  He threw it back onto the bed and stood naked for a moment, trying to master himself, as if he could keep the slick from leaving his body.  Of course, he couldn’t, any more than he could stop the steady stiffening of his cock, which had already passed its normal fullness and was reaching the extra-swollen size of his in-heat erection.  A drop of slick ran down the back of his trembling thigh.

This was unfair.  He was Spider-Man, for fuck’s sake.  What if any of the people he had fought in the past could see him now?  If anybody found out Spider-Man was an Omega, they could all paint this picture in their minds: Spider-Man shaking, leaking, begging for an Alpha’s knot.

_Hydra DOES know.  Hydra knows you’re an Omega, and they know you’re probably a mess for days at a time.  They could totally fuck you over._

Peter groaned in frustration, both at Hydra knowing his shameful secret, and at the fact that he already wanted Wade badly.  His hand twitched, and for a moment, he thought about jerking himself off.

But it wouldn’t do anything.

Outside the window, the lights of New York City sparkled in the darkness, with Central Park a blank swath of black lying before a sea of brilliant windows.  There were people behind most of those windows, living and working. Maybe some of them were Omegas, too. But none of them were Spider-Man. That burden fell to him alone.  It would have been so much easier if he were a Beta.

Peter pressed a hand to his stomach again and leaned with the other hand against the edge of the window.  God, he felt so _lonely_.  He knew it was because of his biology more than anything else, but it didn’t make it feel less real.  Nobody could ever sympathize with him. Maybe nobody even liked him.

He needed an Alpha to make him feel safe and loved.

_That’s not true.  People love you. Aunt May loves you.  Ned and MJ. Uncle Ben loved you._

Peter shivered as his mind started to sink into his heat as much as his body was sinking.  No, he needed an Alpha, now. Only an Alpha could love him and protect him.

There weren’t enough pheromones in the room.  His Alpha wasn’t close enough. Maybe his Alpha left him.  Maybe he had to find another.

“Oh my God, STOP,” Peter commanded himself, and banged his fist into the windowsill so hard that he felt the wood crack slightly.  “This isn’t you. This isn’t you.”

He could say it a hundred times, but it wouldn’t make a difference.  When, two minutes later, the door to the hotel room clicked open and a wave of pheromones hit Peter like a truck, the part of Peter that was Spider-Man seemed a distant memory.  The part of Peter that was an Omega in heat was in control, and it was that part of him that turned toward the bed, folded himself over the edge of it, and begged Wade to help him find relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that you can ask me stuff in the comments of this chapter! I shall try my best to answer your questions :)


	14. What Does It Feel Like?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is such a short chapter -- it's all Wade, baby. I started writing it with one idea in mind, and then it quickly went another way. But I hopefully tied up that glaring continuity error in the story. 
> 
> Heads up -- if you don't like Mpreg, there is a lot of implied Mpreg in this chapter. Don't freak out though.
> 
> Also, as you can see, I did end up posting again, but I'm officially going out of town like...now. The next update might come not this weekend, but the next (I hope).

___WADE

 

{ _ All right, asshole, time to wake the fuck up. _ }

[ _ Yeah, you got some explaining to do. _ ]

Wade jerked awake.  It wasn’t uncommon for the boxes to drag him out of a state of sleep.  To be fair, they were usually the first thing he heard or was aware of in the morning.  But they seemed particularly callous today...whatever day it was. He cracked his eye open and looked around, somewhat expecting to see the inside of one of his decrepit safehouses.  Instead, there was the soft light of a lamp reaching up to an immaculate ceiling. Oh yeah. He was at a hotel.

[ _ Seriously, Wade, you’re in some fucking shit. _ ]

“What did I do this time?” he muttered, covering his face with his hands to block out the soft light, even though it wasn’t really bugging him.  There wasn’t much to complain about at the Ritz-Carlton, he had to admit.

{ _ The writer forgot to have you use condoms with Peter during this heat, even though he’s like, SUPER-duper fertile.  So now you have to explain yourself. _ }

Wade sat bolt upright.  “Seriously?” Then, “Oh shit, that means I haven’t told Peter -- ”

“Told me what?”

Peter must have heard Wade talking, because had come around the corner from the shallow hall leading to the door of the room, and was leaning against the wall.  He was wearing the fluffy white bathrobe that Wade had found in the closet, and eating directly out of one of their takeout boxes. That damn adorable messed-up eyebrow was cocked upwards, waiting for an explanation.

“Uh, well...why don’t you come sit down on the bed for a second?”

Peter stuck the chopsticks back into the carton and came around the bed.  The bathrobe gapped in front as the kid slid the carton onto the bedside stand, and the fabric exposed his hairless chest.  Wade wanted to lick the smooth skin stretched over the taut muscles, but it wasn’t the time. Now was the time for talking, as much as he was bad at it.

God, especially when Petey’s face was horribly confused and concerned.

“Okay, first things first.  Don’t panic.”

Peter shifted slightly.  “Um. Okay.”

“Now, you might have noticed that I haven’t been...er...wearing protection.”  Wade waited for a moment, expecting Peter to nod, but instead a horrible shot of disbelief, followed by terror, flashed over the kid’s face.  “Or...or maybe you didn’t notice. But don’t panic!” he repeated, and grabbed Peter’s arm through the fluffy robe.

“Holy shit, Wade, am I going to get pregnant?!” Peter managed, his voice sounding an octave higher than normal.

“Baby boy, I said not to panic!  Let me explain.”

All the color had gone from Peter’s face.  [ _ You could explain a little faster. _ ]

Wade blew out a breath.  “You know how I wasn’t around a ton between the mission and your prom -- well, I was out trying to make money to pay for this hotel, partially.  But I also went to see Dr. Thompson. I figure that we needed something a little more reliable than rubbers, honestly.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well, I worked with her for a couple weeks, testing out some formulas.  After a few tries, we finally got a birth control shot that works. I’m on it now.  My sperm count is zilch, baby boy.”

For a moment, Peter just stared at Wade.  Then, Peter’s eyes shot down to Wade’s crotch.  “Are you serious? But...aren’t there side effects?  Is it a testosterone and progestogen combination? Doesn’t your healing factor negate the effects?”

Peter was still staring at Wade’s crotch, which was vaguely funny.  Wade reached up and dragged his fingers through Peter’s fuckable hair to get his baby boy’s attention again.  When the deep brown eyes were back on his face, he couldn’t help but crack a smile. “You’re so adorable when you get scientific on me.  Look, you’ll have to ask Dr. Thompson about the specifics. All I know is that you have a healing factor, and you and Dr. Thompson still found a way to get hormones to work on you.  So I had the idea to give it a try. And we tested me several times. I shot blanks for every test.”

Peter swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed.  “How long does it last?”

Wade shrugged.  “Only about twelve hours, you know, because of the healing thing.  I’ll have to take another shot in…” he checked his phone. Jesus, it was 1:35 in the morning.  “...about an hour, I suppose.”

“Damn,” Peter breathed.  “I guess I didn’t even realize you were coming in me without a condom on.  I just...well, you know.” He gestured at his head. “I wasn’t really super logical.”

“Yeah, I’m not always the most reliably logical during my rut, either.  That’s the nice thing about this shot, baby boy. I don’t have to worry so much.”

A strange smile was creeping on the corners of Peter’s face.  “How come you didn’t tell me sooner?”

“You know, somehow I didn’t think of it until this chapter,” Wade answered dryly.

[ _ Whew.  Got that taken care of now. _ ]

{ _ A massive Deus ex machina, but we can pretend that got handled cleanly. _ }

Wade ignored the boxes, and suddenly felt the urge to wrap Peter in his arms and pull him back onto the bed.  He succumbed to the urge. Why resist it? Petey laughed when Wade grabbed him and when they settled back, Wade’s nose was deliciously close to Peter’s neck.  The clean spice scent was so deep, so beautiful.

Neither of them said anything for a long moment.  Instead, Wade thought back to the last time that they were lying on a bed, with Wade’s nose in Peter’s neck.  It had been at the end of Peter’s last heat; he remembered how Peter had slept through the slow overtaking of the clean spice by the dangerous scent that came with his powers.  He hadn’t been able to forget the feeling of loss he’d experienced as he’d smelled the clean spice muddy up.

Even as they reclined on the bed, Wade could smell Peter’s scent changing slightly.  Just a hint of  _ need _ was leaking into it.  He could hear Peter’s pulse very slowly accelerating.

“Mmm, baby boy, you hitting another wave?” he whispered against Peter’s hair.

To Wade’s surprise, he heard a sniffle.  Slowly he raised his head and looked over at Peter’s face.  The kid had his eyes pressed shut, and a tear was running a wet track down his left cheek.  

The boxes started blaming each other; Wade’s first nature was to crack a joke.  But another part of him, the Alpha part, maybe, was worried. Why was Petey crying?  Had Wade upset him with the birth control?

“What’s wrong?”

Peter swallowed hard, reached up, and wiped the dampness off his face.  “We were having a nice moment just now. I wanted to...I don’t know...just  _ be _ here with you for a minute.  Instead, I have to deal with  _ this _ .”  He inhaled and exhaled deliberately.  The front of his robe was tenting. “And I have to get out of this nice robe before I mess it up.”

Peter hastily slid off the bed and yanked off the robe tie, then shrugged the robe off his shoulders and tossed it on the floor.  His back was to Wade, and there was already the telltale shine of slick creeping down the back of Peter’s thigh, from his ass. The kid was covered in goosebumps.

“Hey, come here,” Wade said gingerly.  “We can still cuddle. No need to get to the fuckery yet.”

When Peter turned, though, Wade almost winced with how hard the hero was.  His dick was sticking straight out, already reddish and painful-looking.

“You say that,” Peter breathed, “but my body is going to be screaming otherwise.”

All the same, the kid slowly sat down on the bed, probably smearing slick on the sheets, before tucking his legs under the blanket and settling down, his back to Wade.  Wade followed the obvious cue and curled up behind him as a big spoon.

{ _ Ahh God, his slick is going to get all over our front. _ }

[ _ This is what we get for sleeping naked.  How are we not rutting yet? _ ]

Wade wasn’t rutting yet because he was making a conscious effort to shut it down.  He could feel the insistent pressure in his belly as his body responded to Peter’s pheromones.  All the same, somehow Peter’s heat kept resulting in the boy crying, and that was too much for Wade.  If he had it his way, Peter would never have to cry again.

No way was he going to force this on Peter if he was resisting it.

Instead, he slowly wormed his right arm under Peter’s pillow and offered his hand on the other side.  After a moment, Peter reached out with his left hand and interlaced his immaculate fingers with Wade’s scarred ones.  The smell of slick was heady in the air and the body in front of Wade was trembling slightly.

“What does it feel like?” Wade murmured curiously.  “Why do you hate it?”

Peter took a deep breath in and out, making his pale shoulders hunch and release.  “It feels horrible,” he said honestly.

“It does?”  Wade frowned.  He’d always thought that Omegas felt a strong desire for their Alphas during heat -- enough that it was maddening not to get to them, the same way a rut could become somewhat painful or overwhelming if left too long.  But rutting was still enjoyable. Was a heat so different?

“It’s torture.  It’s the epitome of loneliness.  Like...I always thought that the loneliest I’d ever felt was when I found out that Uncle Ben had been murdered.  Then, I thought the loneliest I’d ever been was when I found out my life was a lie and I was an Omega, not a Beta.  But heats...they’re worse. I feel like I’m completely and utterly alone, and the only person who could ever fix that, who could ever love me, who even could care about me, is the nearest Alpha.”

Peter’s voice was thick with emotion.  Wade didn’t even know what to say.

“In my lower stomach, where I suppose I’d... _ conceive _ ...it feels empty.  Like something should be there, but it’s not.  And if I don’t fill that emptiness, I’ll literally die from it.  From being empty and alone. The only thing that makes it go away is you pushing into me, and knotting me.  Then it just comes back.”

Wade could smell Peter’s scent getting more desperate.  Maybe even now, at this very moment, Peter was experiencing everything he was describing.  He couldn’t imagine the emptiness. With his left hand, he reached over Peter’s hip and found the flat expanse of the teenager’s lower belly.  Gently, he applied a little bit of pressure, as if he could push the emptiness away. The edge of his hand brushed the soft curls that spread up from around Peter’s front.

There was a small, sad chuckle in front of him.  “I wish that worked,” Peter said quietly.

Even if it didn’t, Wade didn’t move his hand.  “So you hate your heat because of the loneliness?”

Peter nodded.  “There’s that, and then the fact that...I don’t know...it’s just not  _ me _ .  I don’t feel like myself in heat.  I’m used to being strong, to being smart, to being Spider-Man.  In heat, I feel like everything slows down; I’m reduced to these base desires.  I’m reduced to needing someone, instead of other people needing me.”

Of course.  The pain of the emptiness was an issue, but it was more than that.  Peter was so used to being a hero that -- well, he’d forgotten something.  Maybe how to release control, or how to rely on someone else. He felt like he WAS someone else.

“Baby boy, I know that when your Omega side comes out, it feels foreign to you.  Your powers kind of pushed it to the side for a long time. But you do realize that being an Omega is as much a part of you as being Spider-Man is, right?  These are both parts of you.”

Peter’s fingers clenched hard around Wade’s.  “I don’t want to be an Omega, Wade. Nobody wants to be an Omega.”

“That should be the title of a very long fanfiction,” Wade mused.  “One where you’re happy in the end.”

For a moment, there was silence, except for Peter’s pounding heartbeat and his breathing, which was accelerating slowly.  Even hearing Peter’s control slip, indicated by his breathing, brought Wade’s rut to the forefront of his mind again. His belly was starting to hurt a little from the pressure.

“I love getting to see both sides of you, Petey.  I’ve told you that from the beginning. Now, let me treat your Omega side right.”

The fingers around Wade’s clenched harder, and all that came out of the teenager was a whimper.

“Give me coherent words, baby boy.”

Peter’s breaths were fast now.  “Yes. Okay. Yes.” The muscles under Wade’s hand jumped slightly.  “Oh God, I’m hard as hell.”

“I know.”  Wade finally moved his hand from Peter’s stomach, and instead took a firm grip around Peter’s cock.  As if Wade had found a button that made Peter give in, the lithe body in front of him jerked at the touch and the breath that came out of it shuddered with desire.  A spurt of hot slick brought Wade right up to the edge of his rut.

“How do you feel now, baby boy?” Wade managed.  He was out of breath, too. He brought his hand up to Peter’s tip and slid a palmful of precum down Peter’s shaft.

“So fucking empty.  I need you inside me.  I need you to come in me.”

[ _ Oh Jesus, that’s delicious. _ ]

{ _ We could put a baby in this kid someday.  I won’t be a great father, but like...we could do it. _ }

The thought from Yellow caught Wade off-guard.  As much as he’d been aware of needing to keep Peter from getting pregnant, he’d never really thought of the alternative.  Of someday, maybe, planning to get pregnant, and actually having a child with Peter. The more he thought of filling Peter with actual, viable sperm, the harder it got to contain his rut.  He stroked Peter harder and faster, dragging precum down with every run.

“Yeah, baby boy?  You want me to come in you?  You want me to fill you?”

The groans coming out of the hero were filthy.  “Yes, yes, Wade, yes.”

Wade’s rut was painful.  His belly fucking hurt with it.  The idea of pumping cum into Peter was so tantalizing.  The fact that it was turning Peter on more...that was glorious.

It was hard to speak, he was breathing so hard, and his mouth was muffled by the back of Peter’s head.  But he had to get Peter to say what he wanted to hear. “Do you wish I could get you pregnant, Peter? Do you want my baby someday?”  He had no idea why he needed to know this very instant, except for the fact that it was insanely hot. Wade shut his eyes and pressed his forehead into Peter’s hair.

Without warning, Peter’s hips stuttered, his breath faltered, and his toes curled against Wade’s leg.  Suddenly, hot cum was spurting between Wade’s fingers, and pulse after pulse of slick was soaking Wade’s abdomen.

[ _ Holy shit. _ ]

{ _ Did Spidey just shoot his load at the idea of having our baby? _ }

Wade was so surprised that he barely noticed his rut slipping out of his control, until he realized that Peter was, of course, still throbbingly hard, and still producing slick, and still panting, and suddenly Wade was shaking and lining up his cock with Peter’s entrance and pressing in -- 

“Fuck, Petey, that was so sexy,” he gasped, as the head of his cock breached the warm, tight rim.  Peter’s left hand was still locked onto Wade’s, the palm exceedingly sweaty now as Peter moved and writhed in front of him.

“I can’t believe I -- I can’t believe that just made me -- ”

Wade laughed breathlessly.  “I can believe it. That’s what these heats are for, anyway -- that’s why your body begs you to mate with an Alpha so often, that’s why you leak slick for me, that’s why your organs move, baby boy...it’s all for that end goal.  No wonder you responded so beautifully to the idea.” His cock was at least halfway in now, slowly sliding through Peter’s ultra-lubricated entrance.

“It’s such a bad idea,” Peter choked, his body trembling at the intrusion.  “I’m in high school, for crying out loud.”

“Sure, now.  But someday maybe.”  Wade pressed further in, until he was pretty much balls-deep.  “Someday maybe I’ll press into you like this, but I’ll be locked and loaded.  And then when you clench around my knot, I’ll be filling you for a real reason….”

Just as Peter opened his mouth to say something, or maybe just to groan at Wade’s words, Wade pulled back out to the tip, sucking the breath right out of the kid’s lungs.

{ _ Don’t you dare hold back. _ }

Wade didn’t.

Whether it was all the talk of the future, or whether it was just the rut that had exploded now that he’d staved it off too long, he couldn’t resist absolutely railing into Peter’s ass again and again.  The pace was insane, especially for the position; the bed banged noisily against the wall as Wade fucked Peter on their sides.

There was so much precum and slick happening that the smell of it was overwhelming.  Peter didn’t even seem like he was capable of making noise anymore; his mouth was open in one big long panting breath.  It was clear that neither of them were going to last long, anyway -- Peter’s abs were already getting tight again, and Wade’s rut was deliciously concentrating downward, down into his pelvis.

And  _ yes _ , there was the sensitivity, the blood pooling, the muscles tightening, the knot forming that meant that he was only a few strokes from release.

He could feel the swelling flesh begin to catch on Peter’s tight ring of muscle; at first, just a timid grip-and-slip, not yet swollen enough to be more than a cumbersome ridge.  But another second, and he felt the rim of Peter’s entrance drag along him with difficulty,  _ fuck _ , there was only one more stroke to go, definitely -- and then, he pushed in hard, tried to pull out, but his knot was bulging, full of blood and tightness.  And the sensation of Peter immediately clenching down on him as a reflex ripped Wade’s orgasm out of his belly, hard.

The silence that Peter had succumbed to burst as Wade bit down on the back of Peter’s neck, in the same place he had before.  Instead of the silence, a forced yell echoed around the room; Wade held Peter’s hand hard as both of them convulsed.

They’d been here before, clinging to each other in their throes, but never after such a conversation as they’d had; never before with Wade thinking so clearly about the way that his cum was spurting into Peter.  It was hot and wet and with his knot holding him in place, there was nowhere for his cum to go but in. Wade took his jizz-splattered hand off Peter’s sensitive cock and pressed it over his baby boy’s lower belly again, failing to resist the urge to imagine that under his palm, someday, could be something they made together.

“What was with you getting all fatherly?” Peter wheezed after a solid minute.  “It would be a horrible idea to have a kid with me.”

They were still holding hands, and Wade took the time to run his thumb tenderly over Peter’s fingers.  “Just my Alpha side coming out. Just a heat-of-the-moment thing,” he said slowly. It felt better to play it off than to make Peter worry.  He was just a teenager after all; Wade could rein in his weird, parental fantasies to let Peter feel like he was still a kid.

After the rough sex, it wasn’t surprising that Peter passed out pretty quickly.  Wade allowed himself to soften up, then gently pulled out, relishing in how sloppy it sounded when he wasn’t using a condom.

Ten minutes later, after he’d cleaned himself and Peter up a little with one of the soft hotel washcloths, Wade found himself in the unnervingly bright bathroom, staring at the syringe in his hand.  He had several more doses of birth control in a heavy-duty plastic box with its own sharps container inside for the used needles.

“Someday maybe, Petey, but not today,” Wade said out loud.  He removed the cover from the needle, brought the tip to his shoulder, and broke his scarred skin before pressing down on the thumb rest of the plunger.  When the clear fluid had gone into him entirely, he carefully pulled the needle out, put the cover back on, and deposited the used syringe in the sharps container.

After a minute, he got back out to the bedroom, he noted the time, then looked at the bed.  Peter was still on his side, with his limbs tangled and his brown hair flopped over in front of his eyes and onto the pillow.

Peter probably had an hour before the next wave would grip him.

“Waste no time, want no time,” Wade mumbled to himself as he crawled back into the bed, cuddled back up to Peter, and let his hand rest on that flat abdomen again.

[ _ You might be a damn fool, Wade. _ ]


	15. Sweet, Sweet Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I'm back! Thank you all for being very patient. I whipped this chapter out over just a few days, so hopefully it doesn't suck. It required a lot of editing.
> 
> I hope this chapter helps answer some questions. We've got everything. Smut, exposition, and all the feels.
> 
> Thank you for the comments, also! I live for the comments.

___PETER

 

By the time the sun started going down on Sunday night, Peter had been in heat for over 48 hours.  He’d been in deep heat for a good 24 of those -- the kind of heat where he barely got a 30-minute reprieve between shaking apart in Wade’s arms and feeling the first pangs of desire stab him in the gut again.  It was utterly exhausting. If he didn’t have powers, there would be no way that he could keep up. He was barely keeping up as it was.

 _My powers are probably the main reason why my heats are so intense,_ he thought to himself as he yawned into the sweat-soaked hotel pillow.  Wade was doing something in the bathroom with running water, maybe rinsing out the washcloth he’d been using to clean Peter up between sessions.  They’d finished only minutes ago, and his heartbeat was finally getting back to normal. _Twenty-five minutes to go._  The countdown crossed his mind like red digits on a time bomb.

Through the wall, Peter could hear Wade chatting with the voices in his head.  He supposed the one that seemed to sit somewhere over Wade’s right shoulder was saying dirty things about him, judging by the bemused tone of Wade’s voice.  “Yellow,” he thought that particular box was called. Somewhere in the back of his head, he wondered if it had been Yellow who had spurred Wade to think about having a baby with Peter.  The thought was still in Peter’s head now. There was no denying that he had come very, very hard when Wade had mentioned the idea. And Wade himself had sounded wrecked. All the same, the fact that Wade had gone to Dr. Thompson to get injectable birth control was incredible.  It was an admission that it was in Peter’s best interest NOT to get pregnant, no matter how much of a turn-on it was in theory. He felt his heartbeat rush affectionately for Wade, especially as the sink turned off and the mercenary quelled his conversation to re-enter the main part of the hotel room.

Wade climbed onto the corner of the bed.  “Hey, Petey.” The springs creaked gently as he moved towards Peter.  “I’m going to sponge you down now, then after this next wave, I’ll fill up the tub for you.  I even brought a bath bomb. It apparently looks like a wet dream of a galaxy when it’s spun out.”

Peter couldn’t help but smile against the pillow.  “That sounds great.” His voice was muffled, and maybe Wade could hear the sleepiness in it, because Wade didn’t say anything else for a long moment.  Instead, he started cleaning Peter up, running the warm, damp washcloth over the backs of Peter’s legs. When the soft cloth dipped into the crevice between his cheeks, Peter couldn’t suppress his sensitive shiver.  Between waves of heat, he could feel how incredibly sore he was.

The reaction didn’t go unnoticed.  Nothing went unnoticed when it came to Wade.  The mercenary sucked in a slow breath behind Peter.  “You look pretty raw, baby boy. Am I pounding you too hard?”

“You don’t have much of a choice.”

“I could do you slow and romantic-like.  I can hold back.”

Peter shook his head, rubbing his face against the pillowcase.  “No, that’s excruciating for me. I feel like I’m stuck in two different dimensions when you do that.  In heat, at least, slow and steady doesn’t win the race. It’s just too maddening. Maybe I’d like it some other time…”  He suddenly realized what he was saying and bit his lip to silence himself.

There was no way that the invitation for Wade to fuck him slowly between heats went unheard.  But Wade didn’t say anything. Maybe he was just being nice, or maybe he thought Peter wasn’t serious.  Even Peter wasn’t sure if he was being serious. Was he really ready to start an actual sexual relationship with one of the most dangerous people he’d ever met, even if Wade, in practice, was so much softer and caring than Deadpool the mercenary?  The blowjob had been one thing. Albeit, one amazingly hot thing. The image of Wade’s mouth around his erection swam in front of his eyes.

Next to him, Wade shifted on the bed and seemed to settle down.  Good, they both needed a little rest before Peter’s next wave of heat.  He closed his eyes, willing the overwhelming sleepiness to take him for a few minutes.  It almost did, except a tiny noise brought him back at the last moment. Barely audible -- inaudible to anyone without Peter’s super senses -- Peter heard Wade chewing the inside of his cheek.

Then, a moment, later, Wade shifted again, and there was the sound of something rough and wet on skin.

Then skin on skin, but with the friction eased by some fluid.

Peter furrowed his eyebrows.  Was Wade _jacking off?_

Curious, he slowly propped his arms up under him and lifted his head from the pillow, suddenly less drowsy than he had been a few seconds ago.  He turned and pushed his bangs out of his face, and sure enough, right next to him, Wade was gently massaging himself. He hadn’t been at it for very long, but Peter could see the flaccid cock slowly filling with his ministrations.

“Are you really doing that?”  Shit, his voice sounded a little shakier than he’d intended.

Wade’s eyes were slitted with lazy focus, but he grinned.  “Why, does it bother you?”

“No, I just -- I mean, you _just_ came, and you probably have like twenty minutes until I’m going to be an absolute mess again, and -- ”  He couldn’t take his eyes off Wade’s right hand, which was confidently teasing the sensitive flesh in the way that a man could pleasure only himself.  “I guess I figured you’d just want as much of a break as possible.”

The man next to him blew out a low, slow breath.  “When I walk into the room and I’ve got that perfect ass to greet me, Spidey, there’s no need for breaks.”

“Funny.”

“Don’t knock it, baby boy.  Let me diddle myself, won’t you?  You can go back to sleep for a bit.”

Peter scoffed.  “Like I could go back to sleep with you doing that.”  He wasn’t exaggerating -- he couldn’t look away. As much as Peter knew Wade had an incredible refractory period, he had thought that even the mercenary would need a little more time between goes after shooting his load twice an hour for a whole day.  But in front of his eyes, Wade’s cock was growing. It was so often behind him that he realized he hadn’t ever really seen it up close.

 _Fuck,_ Wade had a nice dick.  It was thick -- _getting thicker_ \-- and the head was red, peeking out from behind his foreskin.   _Holy shit, Wade is uncircumcised._

Peter swallowed and rolled onto his left elbow.  “You’re not...um…”

“I’m totally intact, baby boy,” Wade interjected, his voice chipper even though it was getting lower with arousal.  

“Oh.  Because I’m...you know.  Is that weird...to you?” Peter blurted out, suddenly feeling self-conscious.  He was, for the moment, glad that he was hidden under the sheet.

Wade’s gaze snapped to Peter, his eyes wide.  “Petey, you have one of the most perfect johnsons I’ve ever seen in my life.  When I blew you, it was an out-of-body experience. I don’t care that you’re circumcised, that’s for sure.”

“Oh.”   _An out-of-body experience?_  Peter felt a warmth in his stomach that had nothing to do with being in heat.

Wade’s fingers were still working his erection, which was now respectably massive, and the mercenary’s eyes had gone back to being heavy-lidded, barely open.  The pace of his breathing was slowly getting faster, forcing his muscled chest up and down. “Wade.”

The response was still controlled.  “Yeah, Petey?”

“I know you want me to let you get yourself off.  But I think you should let me.”

Wade didn’t seem to understand.  “Let you what?”

“Do this.”

Peter didn’t wait for the response.  Instead, he leaned in far, pushed Wade’s stunned hand away, and took hold of the hard member in his own grip.  Then, not knowing what to do except follow his instincts, he bent his face low to the skin and gingerly ran his tongue around the base.

Wade’s hips jerked off the bed.

“Wha...what are you doing?”

He had never tasted a dick before.  It was like licking any skin, except somehow infinitely silkier and smoother.  Wade had just cleaned himself off, so the very slight saltiness must have come from Wade’s sweaty hand.  The only other thing he could perceive was the faint scent of slick, which he knew had come from himself.  Their two flavors, together on Wade. Together in Peter’s mouth.

As he reached the top of Wade’s cock, he gently pulled back Wade’s foreskin with his thumb, and dragged the tip of his tongue along the edge of the fold.  Precum beaded up from the slit near Peter’s nose. It smelled so much like pheromones that Peter could feel his own body’s response, even though he wasn’t in a wave of heat.  Warm arousal was tingling between his legs, but it wasn’t demanding.

He wanted to take his time.

Slowly, Peter shifted his weight.  He kept his tongue pressed to the hot skin of his Alpha, but at the moment, he felt like anything but an Omega.  He was more like an animal, not wanting to startle its prey too soon. Peter nimbly moved to straddle Wade’s legs so he would have a better angle, distantly aware that his own cock was slowly filling, although he had orgasmed barely ten minutes ago.  It didn’t matter yet. He was far more aware of the fact that he had no experience, that he had no real notion of how to please Wade, so instead, everything he was doing was based on curiosity.

With a stroke of desire, he ran the tip of his tongue over the slit on the tip of Wade’s head.  The precum that had gathered there was unlike anything Peter had ever had in his mouth. It had a barely-tangible sweetness to it.  As he tongued Wade’s slit again, he realized that the man was trembling.

 _Maybe he doesn’t like it?_  Peter made a questioning noise in his throat, and tilted his head up so he could see the mercenary’s face.  Instantly, Peter knew that it wasn’t an issue of Wade NOT liking what he was doing. Instead of a grimace, he was met with a wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression.  “Fuck, Spidey.”

Well, then.  His insecurity dissipated and courage took its place, burning in his chest.  He tilted his head back down, and without another moment’s hesitation, he took Wade as far into his mouth as he could.

Wade grunted, and the hips underneath Peter bucked, pushing the head of Wade’s cock right into Peter’s uvula.  He swallowed the gag that threatened to overpower him and was immediately rewarded by a strong hand gripping his hair, close to his scalp.  Still, with the hand there, suddenly it felt like the power dynamic was shifting. Wade could lift Peter back, or could shove him down farther.  That wasn’t what he wanted -- he wanted to have the wheel, if only for a moment. He wanted Wade at his mercy for as long as he could have him that way.

Peter pulled off Wade slowly and met his eyes.  With a commanding voice that he normally only used when he needed to gain control of a situation as Spider-Man, he snapped, “Put your hands behind your back.”

Wade stared for a moment, his pupils blown stunningly wide.  Then, he pulled his hand from Peter’s hair, loosened his death-grip on the sheet that he had going with the other, and slid his hands underneath him.  “Don’t move, Wade,” Peter murmured, returning to touch his lips to the soft skin reaching up for his mouth.

He was going to take his sweet, sweet time.

Peter wasn’t sure how long he was at it.  He only knew that as he worked Wade, he felt a sense of power that he generally only associated with swinging through the streets of New York.  For once, the situation was within his control. Every noise that came out of Wade’s mouth was because of what _he_ was doing; every movement Wade made was a response to _his_ tongue.  Peter held the base with his hand while he let his mouth do all the work, until his jaw ached with use, but still he didn’t stop.  When he could feel the base of Wade’s cock becoming even warmer, and thickening a little under his fingers, a thrill went through him, as if he was in the heat of a fight.  As if he was winning. The heightening noise from Wade was just a bonus.

Then, just as Peter was relishing the feeling of Wade’s knot starting to swell in earnest, he felt the heat between his own legs start to deepen.  It was no longer a low hum of arousal, and suddenly it was spreading throughout his body.

Even though he could feel his next wave hitting, Peter resisted the sudden urge to stop what he was doing and beg his Alpha to fuck him.  He wanted to cling to control as long as possible. He didn’t want to give it up yet, not even as his erection filled out further, not even as he started lubricating and the first drip of slick slid down to his balls.

Wade was shaking, but Peter was starting to tremble, too.  Although he was measuring his breathing, his heart was picking up the pace in his chest.  Likewise, he could feel Wade’s control slipping. The knot in his hand was massive, seemingly far too big to fit in Peter’s entrance.  And yet, there it was, reaching its full hardness, and the pheromones in the room were starting to become overwhelming.

In Peter’s lower abdomen, the feeling of emptiness hit like a truck.

He flinched, and braced his stomach as a reflex with his left hand.  Maybe it was because Wade was already SO aroused, and his body could sense it, but the pain of the emptiness was explosive.  He suddenly could barely think; the close-lipped whine that made its way into his throat probably sounded pathetic, but he heard it as though it were in the distance.  The muscles in his arms and legs shook, and he felt himself fall back onto the bed, at Wade’s side.

Peter didn’t stay on his back like that for long.  Wade’s hands grabbed his hips, and suddenly Peter was flipped over, on his stomach.  Then, one of the hands dug itself under Peter’s belly and dragged him up, supporting him so Peter was on all fours.

The other hand went straight to Peter’s overly-hard cock.  He choked on a sob as the hand took him in a powerful grip, but that wasn’t the maddening part.  Wade’s thumb was suddenly flicking back and forth over the head of Peter’s cock, rubbing the precum against the nerve endings again and again.  Peter’s fingers tightened on the sheets as his spine melted at the sensation.

Something firm pressed against his entrance, and didn’t stop.

All of the breath was gone from Peter’s lungs.  His mouth ghosted Wade’s name as the man drove straight into him, as the knot burned past the tight ring of muscle and he felt a hot pressure on his prostate.  As had happened every time Wade had knotted him, Peter’s muscles involuntarily clenched down, holding the knot there. It was that involuntary response that seemed to trigger his orgasm every time.  This was no different.

The electricity that had been shooting up Peter’s spine as Wade had teased the head of his cock seemed to break into a million pieces.  Just as the first spasm of pleasure made Wade throb inside Peter, likewise Peter’s own body suddenly convulsed, and he felt the release of his own cum spurting into Wade’s hand.

And, painful yet incredible, Peter felt Wade’s teeth sink into _that spot_ on the back of his neck, over his spine, where his hairline stopped.

Unbidden, Peter felt an overwhelming urge to clamp his own teeth onto something.  He went for the pillow, inches from his face, and fastened his jaw on it so hard that he thought he felt the seams come apart.  He was coming _so_ hard.  Despite his powers, Peter could feel his limbs barely able to hold up his and Wade’s weight.  Instead, they gave out, and both of them landed with a comical _whump_ on the soft bed.  The handful of cum that Wade had been holding splatted against Peter’s stomach.

And then, just like that, his wave of heat was over.  It had lasted barely a minute.

“Holy shit,” Peter panted against his pillow.

“It worked.”  Wade had freed his teeth from Peter’s neck, but his voice was muffled in Peter’s hair.  “Fastest heat wave ever, baby boy.”

“You -- you planned that?”

“I never plan anything, baby boy.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, fine.  The idea just came to me, then.”

Peter was already dizzy with post-coital exhaustion.  “Just as easily as you came _into_ me, right?”  It was a horrible joke, he had to admit, but he was tired.

Wade gasped in mock surprise.  “You naughty boy.”

They stayed, locked together, for another few minutes, until Wade could finally pull his softening knot out of Peter.  Then, just as Wade had promised, he went to fill the bathtub. When he came back for Peter and carried him into the bathroom, Peter was greeted by water made up of swirling colors and sparkles, almost as though Wade were gently sliding him into a tub full of the cosmos itself.

When Wade slid in across from him, bringing the water in the tub dangerously close to overflowing, Peter couldn’t help but float over to Wade’s shoulder and rest his head on the scarred skin.  In turn, Wade reached up and pushed Peter’s wet hair back before kissing Peter’s forehead with his soft, scarred lips.

“This is perfect,” Peter murmured, warmth and relaxation and affection taking hold of all of his limbs.  He curled his leg over Wade’s in the swirling, sparkling water.

Wade laughed in his throat.  “Baby boy, is it ever.”

  


~~~~~~~

 

“So _how_ many times did you guys bang?”

The knee behind Peter’s head jerked, punching him in the back of the skull.  “Ow, MJ, damn.”

“Sorry.  I’m just disgusted that Ned would even ask such a question.”

Ned didn’t look sheepish in the least.  It was Tuesday after school, and they were eating ice cream at one of the many small corner playgrounds in Queens.  It was an unseasonably warm day, so ice cream had seemed like the perfect pick-me-up. Especially after Peter had gotten verbally beaten by Principal Morita about being gone from school Monday without a valid doctor’s note.  To be fair, Peter had just been happy that his heat had finished sometime in the wee hours of Tuesday morning; Wade had helped him clean up and get back to Queens before the first bell.

MJ’s knee shifted back into a more comfortable position, and Peter rested his head against it again.  He was sitting on the concrete in front of a park bench, on which MJ was sprawled out, her head resting on her backpack.  She’d finished her popsicle almost immediately, while Peter and Ned were still managing their massive waffle cones.

“I don’t need him to get into the gory details.  It’s just crazy that Peter gets to get laid by the world’s most dangerous mercenary every month.”  Ned gestured wildly, his ice cream barely staying in its cone. He was sitting on the nearest swing, his shoes dragging across the pebbled ground noisily.

“Shut up, will you?  There are children nearby.”

Peter nodded.  “I’m going to agree with MJ.  This is inappropriate conversation.  In fact, if we could like, never talk about it again, I’d be pretty set.”

Ned sighed and bit into his ice cream.  His “fine” was barely distinguishable with his mouth full.

Now that the sun was out, and the days were getting warmer, and graduation was closing in, Peter could feel himself itching to get the Spider-Man suit on (after he washed it, of course.  It was still plastered with dried fluids, sitting in the bottom of his backpack). All the same, he felt he owed it to his friends to spend a few hours with them. He had been MIA all weekend, after all, “getting laid” as Ned referred to it, even though that brought to mind a far different picture than what was usually happening during his heats.  “Getting fucked to avoid insanity” was probably how Peter would have described it.

After his bite of ice cream, Ned seemed to have already forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to be talking about Peter and Wade.  “How much do you think he spent on the hotel room? Is he loaded? Are you like, his sugar baby?”

Peter stared.  “Ned. What the hell.”

“If it was the Ritz-Carlton, this guy spent a small fortune,” MJ piped in dryly.  “I’m imagining at least a few hundred dollars per night.” Peter swung his head over to look at MJ with what he hoped was a betrayed expression.  She was supposed to be leaving this conversation alone, too.

“Didn’t you say it had a massive bathtub, Peter?”

MJ whistled.  “Christ. Several hundred dollars then.”

Peter took a moment to chase a stray drip of ice cream with his tongue before validating either one of his friends with a response.  “Okay, fine, whatever. Maybe Wade just wanted me to be comfortable, all right? But I am NOT his sugar baby.”

“All I’m saying is that he seems to like you,” Ned said.  “A lot. Considering how little time you’ve spent together.  Like, eight days total, right?”

Peter had to agree.  There was no way he was going to tell them about the blowjob or about their prom encounter on the roof.  “Gee, thanks. Are you saying that I don’t make a good first impression?”

MJ shrugged.  “I wouldn’t spend several hundred dollars on you, and I’ve known you for _years_.”

Peter felt anger bubbling in his stomach.  Ned and MJ didn’t understand how uncomfortable it was to be in heat, and how any little luxury helped.  “Look, all Alphas spend money on their Omegas. It’s a natural thing, okay? He’s just doing what his instincts tell him to do to make me happy and comfortable.”

Ned stopped swinging.  “ _Their_ Omegas?  You think Deadpool thinks of you as _his Omega_?”

Peter swallowed.  “Come on, I didn’t mean -- ”

MJ’s knee moved again, a nervous twitch.  “Do you think of him as your Alpha?” she asked, quietly.

For a moment, nobody said anything.  Peter felt ganged up on suddenly. Ice cream dripped down his hand as he sat forward.  “No. No! But, I mean, I’ve spent my heats with him so far, and I’ve never spent them with any other Alpha, so, I mean, he’s the only --”  They were both staring at him. “Guys, seriously! What do you want me to say? If you got to spend time with Wade, you’d like him, too.”

“You...like him?”  Ned sounded incredulous.  A small group of ants was gathering where Peter’s ice cream was dripping on the concrete between his feet.  Finishing off his cone was the last thing on his mind.

“Yeah, I mean, he’s honestly really nice.  He took me out on a date on Friday, before we went to the hotel.  We went to, like, a _really_ good restaurant.”

Ned looked like he was about to pass out.  “He took you on a _date_ ?  On your _second_ heat together?”

“What?  I bet that’s not uncommon -- ”

MJ sat up suddenly.  Peter stopped talking and both he and Ned turned to look at her.  She was staring at the ground, eyebrows furrowed, like she had just thought of something.

Slowly, she looked at Peter.

“Did he bite you?”

“ _What?_ ”

Her expression didn’t change.  “Did he bite you? Somewhere? Anywhere?”

It was almost entirely reflex that sent Peter’s hand to the back of his neck, right to the place where Wade had twice sunk his teeth into Peter’s skin.  “Why?”

Ned made a wounded noise.  “ _Why_?  Peter, Alphas and Omegas bond through biting.  Seriously, it’s like you didn’t pay attention at all in biology.  Did he try to bond with you?”

“I...I mean he…”

MJ’s voice was serious.  “Did you bite him, too?”

Peter couldn’t talk.  The scene in the hotel room came back to him in a flood; Wade’s teeth fastening over that spot on the back of his neck, and Peter’s gut instinct to bite something claiming him as fiercely as his instincts told him to spin webs when he was swinging through the city.  He’d clamped down on the bedding, though, not Wade. “No, I...I bit the pillow.”

MJ’s shoulders seemed to crumple with relief.  “Holy shit, Peter. I can’t believe you came so close to bonding with Deadpool.  And, I can’t believe you don’t remember how dangerous that is.”

“Why?”

Ned’s ice cream was similarly forgotten in his hand, half of it now soup in the cone.  “Bonding stimulates really intense feelings, Peter. Once you bond with an Alpha, you’re going to feel that emotional connection, even if it’s not really there.”  He shook his head. “Most pairs bond for life, that’s how strong it is.”

Peter’s fingertips traced over the part of his neck where he knew Wade had bit him.  There was nothing there -- no mark, no bruise, no scar. His healing factor had wiped out any evidence of Wade’s attempt to bond with him.  But he knew it had been there.

Even if they hadn’t bonded, the fact that Wade had _tried_ to make that connection was alarming, for two reasons.  Firstly, it was a little terrifying, because Peter didn’t know if he was ready to bond to anyone, even if it was Wade.  But it was also alarming because it seemed like Wade was ready to bond with _him_.  Or maybe he was just biting Peter in the heat of the moment, out of instinct, the same way Peter felt compelled to bite something.  He wasn’t sure which idea made him more anxious.

Just as he was wondering how to confront Wade about his two attempts to bond with him, Peter remembered something that made his heart drop into his stomach.

Peter had been experiencing growing affection for Wade ever since his first heat.  It seemed organic, it seemed real...it seemed _mutual_.  But now, in his mind, unerasable, was the memory of his second-ever wave of heat, when Wade had taken him from behind in the shower.  It had been insanely hot, insanely visceral. That had been when Wade had first bit him on the back of the neck.

And, when Wade’s hand had come up to cover Peter’s mouth, Peter had felt that same gut-instinct to bite something.  Wade’s hand had just been there. Ready for Peter to sink his teeth into.

“I have to go.”  Peter stood instantly, his heart pounding in his chest.

“What?  Where are you going?” MJ asked, concern in her voice.

Ned sat forward.  “Is there a bad guy?” he piped in eagerly, his constant refrain.

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”  Peter turned, grabbed his backpack from the ground, and strode away towards his apartment, ditching the last bit of his melted ice cream cone in a trash can.

He barely knew where he was going, only following the same pathways he’d taken everywhere since he was six years old and had to move into his uncle and aunt’s apartment in Queens after his parents’ deaths.  His head was buzzing with the implications of what he’d just remembered.

Wade had bit him, and he’d bit him back.  In the throes of his orgasm, he’d bitten Wade back.  If what Ned and MJ had said was true, then that meant he and Wade were bonded.

And it meant that how he felt about Wade...how _Wade_ felt about _him_ ….

Maybe none of it was even real.

He would have given anything to be home this very instant, in the privacy of his room.  Instead, he had another ten blocks to go. Peter reached up to wipe the moisture from his eyes before he shoved his hands in his pockets, bowed his head, and pressed on.

  


~~~~~

 

____WADE

 

The first time Wade had gone to Dr. Thompson’s office had been awkward, to say the least.  He knew Spidey probably went in through the window, but he didn’t have the webs for that luxury.  Instead, he’d crashed in through the revolving front door of the office building, scared the absolute shit out of the receptionist, and ridden up the elevator to the twenty-first floor in his Deadpool suit next to a terrified janitor.  He’d tried to make small talk, but that usually didn’t go anywhere for him, whether he was in his suit or out of it. It probably didn’t help that he hadn’t washed off the blood from the last person he’d offed.

Luckily, Dr. Thompson had known who he was right away, especially since he’d seen her back when she’d examined Spidey for the first time in the old Avengers Tower.  She also had guessed why he’d been there, which was nice. It was good to have people up to speed with Wade’s slightly crazy-paced brain.

Since perfecting the birth control had taken them a couple meetings, the receptionist, Stacy, now knew him, and so did the janitorial staff.  When Wade strolled in on the ground floor on Tuesday after Peter’s heat, he blew a kiss to Stacy and she blushed.

[ _We’ve still got it._ ]

{ _Only in the suit though.  Otherwise we look like mashed potatoes, and nobody’s coming within twenty feet of that._ }

[ _Peter does._ ]

Dr. Thompson was in her office, and it almost kinda seemed like she was waiting for him.  When he burst in through the door, she stood, eyes excited. “How did it go?”

“Perfecto, Doc.  Thanks for the injectables.”  Wade tossed the heavy case onto the cushy armchair.  All the used sharps jangled together.

“Well, I’m just glad that we figured out something a little more reliable than condoms.”  She came around her desk to grab the case, which she put in the locked cupboard on the other side of the room.  Then she came back and leaned against the desk with her arms crossed over her chest. “But that’s not the only reason why you’re here, I take it.”

{ _Does this lady read minds?_ }

Wade blinked.  “Uh, yeah. Actually I had a question.”

She smiled, nodding so her black hair spilled forward and back again.  “Ask away.”

The armchair was open, so Wade slid onto it, his legs slung up over the back and his head resting on the armrest.  “I was talking to Spidey while he was in his heat, and he said that heats fucking suck. Like, worse than I thought.”

“What did he describe?”

“He said that it feels super lonely, and he feels empty inside.  I thought heats were supposed to be fun and desperate, but not, you know, _that_ desperate.  Or maybe just not desperate in that way.”  He paused, but Dr. Thompson didn’t say anything.  “Am I making any sense?”

“You are.  I’m just thinking.”

“Basically I feel bad for the kid.  I mean, he’s eighteen. _You_ know he’s eighteen.  And that’s just fucked up, for anybody to feel unwanted and powerless and everything, but least of all Spidey.”

Dr. Thompson sighed.  “Here’s the thing. It’s _because_ he’s Spider-Man that everything is so intense.  All Omegas feel some sense of what he’s describing, but it lasts so long and the waves are so frequent because he has powers.  I can only imagine that a lot of mutants and enhanced individuals go through something like this.”

Wade rubbed his eyes through the mask.  That sounded like a big fat piece of shit, if that was true.  He’d always known that enhanced people didn’t always get an easy cut in life -- his life was a prime example -- but seeing Peter suffer the consequences gave him a new perspective.  There was nobody in the world who he _less_ wanted to see suffer.  “Can I do anything? You know, besides…”  He made a crude gesture to imitate sex.

{ _Solid._ }

[ _What are you, five years old?_ }

Dr. Thompson laughed and unfolded her arms.  “Well, I feel the need to point out that you’re already doing a lot for Spider-Man.  Very few Alphas take the time to get birth control for themselves, and you’re the first enhanced individual for whom I’ve had to develop something.”

“That was a no-brainer though.  As much as I’d love to knock that kid up, he’s...you know, a kid.”

“True.”  The doctor bit her lip for a moment, before saying, “Well, the only other thing that I would recommend in a case like this is to bond with an Omega who is experiencing very powerful negative heat symptoms.”

Wade choked on his own spit.  He slid his legs off the back of the chair and brought himself into an upright position to get control over his coughing before looking up at Dr. Thompson with what he was sure was an incredulous expression.

“ _Excusez-moi_?”

“I mean, I’m not saying you should bond with Spider-Man.  But in almost all cases when Omegas have particularly strong heats, the act of bonding with an Alpha will cause the heat to mellow.”  She gestured towards her head. “Mentally and physically, there can be a lot of instability in a heat, and bonding makes that calm down.  Otherwise, Omegas often feel insecurity, or have a compulsion to feel insecurity, no matter how good of a relationship they have with their Alpha.  I’m guessing that with Spider-Man, his body is constantly making him feel as though his Alpha isn’t close enough, until you’re...well, physically attached to him.  That may manifest as actual pain, depending on how intense it is.”

Wade felt sick to his stomach.  “He does cry a lot,” he said faintly.

“I’m not entirely surprised.”

“You have to know that I can’t bond with him, right?  Just, physically, I can’t.”

Dr. Thompson frowned.  “Why have you come to that conclusion?”

{ _All right, we lost her now._ }

“Um...because of the healing factor?  A bond bite has to stay, right? The bites always heal too fast for the hormones to really kick in.  And it’s the same with Spidey. I know because I’ve…” He swallowed. “I uh...sort of bit him.”

She raised her eyebrows.  “You did?”

“I never claimed to be perfect.  It was a heat-of-the-moment thing.  But like I expected, it didn’t take anyway.  And nothing Spidey could ever do to me would have lasting effects, either.  We both heal too fast. And you need BOTH bites to take to get a proper bond.  I paid attention in biology class.”

Dr. Thompson chewed the inside of her lip for a moment before suddenly standing upright and walking back to the locking cabinet.  She fussed with the lock for a second while Wade craned his head to watch. When she reached in and pulled out a box, Wade had to admit that he had no idea where she was going with this.

[ _The author knows, though, just you wait._ ]

“This,” Dr. Thompson explained, “is artificial bonding hormone.  I always keep some on-hand in case we have a couple come in who have trouble bonding for whatever reason.  Weak teeth -- that happens sometimes.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, it’s not a perfect science. It creates the general feeling of bonding, but it doesn’t necessarily create the bonding _to_ a certain person.  A bite is still required for that.  But, it can help a bite take, especially if normally a bite couldn’t stimulate the bonding hormone on its own.”

{ _Wait.  Is she saying --?_ }

“What I’m trying to say is that, yes, you can bond with Spider-Man.  Just not quite in the ‘normal’ way.” She held out the box to Wade.

Wade didn’t take it.

[ _Why aren’t you taking it?  We could help Spidey._ ]

{ _We could bang Spidey FOREVER._ }

No.  It wasn’t right.  Something about it wasn’t right, yet.  “I don’t think we’re there...in our...relationship.”  [ _Is it a relationship?_ ]  “I mean, as much as I’d _love_ to claim Spidey for the rest of our days, I just want him to be on the same page, you know?  We’ve only spent two heats together. I want him to grow to like me. Like an actual couple.”

Dr. Thompson smiled.  “That’s a very smart decision.  Even if it’s a hard one.”

“But you understand, right, Doc?”

“I do.  Bonding can cause feelings to exaggerate.  If you’re not sure that Spider-Man feels about you the way you seem to feel about him, then it’s a good idea to put off bonding for a while.  On the other hand, you have to see him struggle through something really difficult, and I can sympathize with your desire to help him.”

“Isn’t there another way?”

The doctor leaned back on her desk once more.  She looked down at the photograph next to her, like she was distracted.  Wade had noticed the photograph before -- the one with Dr. Thompson surrounded by a lot of Guatemalans.  He wouldn’t have known they were Guatemalan, except for the flag that was barely visible behind them, mostly covered by a bunch of smiling faces.  He asked a different question. “Is that your family?”

“My husband’s family.”  Ah. He must have been the one sitting next to Dr. Thompson with the biggest grin of all.

“He’s an Omega, isn’t he?”

Dr. Thompson looked at him with a half-smiling, half-frustrated expression.  “What makes you think that?”

“Your arm is over his.  He looks thrilled out of his mind to be under your wing.  You went into reproductive medicine and hormone research.”

She reached over and picked up the framed photo.  “Huh. I never noticed my arm was over his.”

“You’re an Alpha, then.”

“No.  I’m a Beta.”  She put the photo down.  “You’re right though, that’s a major reason why I went into hormone research.  I wanted to bond with my husband, even though I couldn’t naturally. That’s one reason why there are a lot more Betas out there than there are Alphas and Omegas.  For a long time, we couldn’t figure out how to mate with you all, so we just had lots and lots of Beta children between ourselves.”

“But Betas can have Alpha or Omega children.”

“That’s true.  But those are recessive traits.  It’s a rarity, just like blue eyes in a family where both parents have brown eyes.”  She smiled. “Were your parents both Betas? Is that why you say that?”

Wade scoffed.  “My dad was the Alpha-est Alpha to ever have Alpha-ed.”

“Spider-Man’s parents?”

“Dead.”  Wade was surprised that Dr. Thompson looked surprised.

“I guess that’s one reason why Tony Stark looks after him so closely, isn’t it?”

Suddenly, Wade felt a little annoyed.  Sure, Stark helped finance Spider-Man, and the whole city knew it.  But in Wade’s mind, Iron Ass had passed the baton the minute he’d asked Wade to fuck the kid.  Of course, Wade was glad that the billionaire had asked. But it dawned on him that nobody would ever really know that Deadpool and Spider-Man were an item.  They just seemed like comrades-in-arms, whereas Tony Stark was like Spider-Man’s mentor.

If he and Spidey ever bonded, he’d make sure the whole world knew that they were together now, thank you very much.

“Well, Doc, this has been enlightening,” Wade said, standing up and stretching.

Dr. Thompson pursed her lips.  Whether she knew she’d stuck her foot in her mouth or not, Wade couldn’t tell.  She simply held out her hand to shake Deadpool’s. “Always a pleasure.”

“Same.”  He meant it, even if he was leaving on a bad-ish note this time.

“Make sure Spider-Man comes in to get his regulators within the next few days, won’t you?”

“Eh, I’m sure he will.  Responsibility is kind of his thing.”  Wade stepped back, saluted the good doctor, and skipped out of the room, whistling as he went.

Despite her comment about Tony Stark, Wade was in a better mood than he expected.  After all, he’d learned something pretty important.

He could bond with Peter.  If he really wanted, he could bond with his baby boy.


	16. Just How Dangerous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> I've got a busy weekend ahead of me so I'm posting tonight since I had this chapter ready. This was particularly difficult to write, because not only is it essential to the plot, but I had to figure out how to get these characters to the places they needed to be. There's a lot of conversation in this chapter, so sorry about that. More action is coming up soon.
> 
> If you're curious how long this (admittedly very long already) fic is going to be in the end...I'm still not sure. I have a couple major plot points to get through, the climax of the story will be coming up pretty soon here, and then we're going to need a nice resolution. We'll definitely surpass 20 chapters easily, so there's still plenty more to come.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and liking this fic :) Your comments are incredible and I love what you guys say. Just a reminder that I do love to read suggestions, too, so if you've got something to say, lay it on me :D

____PETER

 

There had been the day, back when he was fifteen, when he’d walked into his apartment with a perfectly good DVD player (that he’d taken out of the trash) under his arm.  On that day, Mr. Stark had recruited him to go on the mission to Germany. That was the day everything had gone right, and had kept going right. 

Today was not like that day.

Peter felt like he might throw up.  He shoved the key into the lock, turned it -- and the door opened suddenly from the inside.  Aunt May was standing there, looking at him with a big-eyed expression.

Logically, he knew that she was probably just excited to see him, that he’d gone straight to school today and that she hadn’t seen him since Friday morning, before his heat.  But something in him also told him that his aunt knew everything, from when he’d gotten his ass handed to him on the street, to when a test hadn’t gone like he’d planned, to when he’d accidentally bonded with a dangerous anti-hero.

Peter surged forward and pressed his face into her collar.  The tears that had been threatening to spill out on his whole walk home dampened her shirt and dripped down his chin.

Immediately her arms were around him.  “Hey, it’s okay. Peter, it’s okay.”

He hadn’t sobbed uncontrollably since he’d been standing in the shower at the Avengers compound after his near-death experience, but now he couldn’t rein it in.  “I f-fucked up, I fucked up,” he choked into May’s shoulder. Her arms tightened, and one of her hands went to his hair, just above where Wade had claimed him with his teeth.

“It’s okay.”

That was one nice thing about Aunt May.  She wasn’t even his direct relative, but to her, he was a son.

Ten minutes later, he was on the couch under a crocheted blanket, a cup of hot chocolate on the table next to him.  Aunt May was in the adjacent armchair, eyes worried, even if she was keeping her cool externally.

“You can tell me anything, Peter.”

“I know.”  He stared at the ceiling.  He wondered if his eyes were scarily red against his pale face.

“What happened?”

Peter thought he should roll onto his side to face his aunt, but the prospect of making eye contact was terrifying, for some reason.  Instead, he inhaled and exhaled slowly, focusing on the ceiling light.

“Please, don’t judge me, Aunt May.”

May leaned forward.  “You know I won’t, Peter.”

“I.”  God, it was hard to say.  “I think I bonded. With the Alpha.”

For a moment, there was silence, and Peter felt tears burn into his eyes once more.  He untucked one of his hands from the blanket and pressed his sleeve to his face. “Like I said, I fucked up, May.”

“You bonded with Wade?”

Peter swallowed the log in his throat.  “You know his name?”

“He called me last week to fill me in on his plan for this last weekend.”  Aunt May shifted in her seat. “He sounded nice, Peter. He really did. You could do worse.”  She was trying to make him feel better, knowing that there was nothing to be done to fix it.

“I didn’t intend for it to happen, though.  It was...right away. He bit me, on the back of my neck, when we were -- ”  Peter grimaced, not wanting to go into detail. “ -- and he tried to cover my mouth with his hand, and instinct kicked in, and….  This was here, during my first heat. Right away in my first heat.”

“So he couldn’t control himself?”  Aunt May sounded equally understanding and equally upset.

“Neither could I, I guess.”

“I don’t blame you, Peter.  Everything was new for you. But Wade should have known better.”

Suddenly, Peter felt like he needed to look at his aunt.  He needed to explain  _ why _ it was such a big deal that they’d bonded.  Why it was like pulling the rug out from under Peter.

“I thought I really liked him.  I thought he really liked  _ me _ .”  He pulled both his hands up and buried his face in them.  “I really like him, May.”

Suddenly, he could sense his aunt standing up and moving toward him.  She knelt down at the end of the couch and kissed Peter’s hair before gently resting her head on his.  With one of her hands, she pulled the blanket up higher around Peter’s shoulders.

“Sometimes in love, it’s hard to tell what’s real.  Things just need time.”

There, his aunt had put the word to it that Peter hadn’t quite been able to, yet.  She’d said the L-word, the word that had been dancing around in the back of Peter’s psyche since...well, he couldn’t in-point the exact moment that he’d started to feel something akin to the L-word.  But the fact that Aunt May said it seemed to validate him.

For several minutes, they just stayed like that, with Aunt May gently stroking his hair as she laid her head on him.

“Principal Morita is mad at me, too.  For missing so much class.”

“You should really just tell him, Peter.”

“I don’t want people to know.  You know how people think of Omegas.”

“It doesn’t change a damn thing about who you are.  You are still Peter Parker. Smarty-pants, Spider-Man, and my nephew.”  She lifted her head gently and pressed another kiss onto Peter’s head, not far from where Wade had kissed him in the bathtub.

“I’m not so sure that I’m a smarty-pants, seeing as Ned and MJ have pointed out that I must not have paid any attention in biology.”

Aunt May blew out an exasperated breath against his hair.  “Peter, you’ve gotten nothing but straight A’s in biology and every other class.  The only reason you don’t remember things about being an Omega is because you didn’t  _ want _ to learn them.”

“I didn’t want to be one.”

“But you are, and I love you.  Nothing is going to change that.”

Peter pressed his cheek into the pillow and felt warm gratitude toward his aunt fill his whole body.  “Don’t you mean you ‘larb’ me?”

Aunt May laughed and tucked his hair behind his ear.  “You thinking of Thai food for dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make the phone call.”

While his aunt busied herself with ordering takeout, Peter watched the steam rise from his hot chocolate on the table.  This. This was a real relationship -- one built on years of mutual trust and respect and real love. He knew that his Aunt May loved him, and would be there for him no matter what.  He could say the same thing about Ned, MJ...he could have said the same thing about his Uncle Ben. Now that he looked at his fling with Wade, he could see just how whirlwind it had been, how devastatingly naive he must be to have thought that real feelings could emerge from such a short time.  The idea that he’d thought of Wade, back in the Hydra base, when he’d thought he was going to  _ die _ \-- it made him feel nauseated.  He’d been right to feel shame, to wonder why his thoughts hadn’t gone to his friends and family, and instead to the lover he’d had for a few days, at most.  It was a product of misguided hormones. It was his body’s response to the bite; it was his body thinking that Wade was now his life partner. It wasn’t real.

Peter turned his face into the arm of the couch and squeezed his eyes shut.  He had to do something. He owed it to himself to straighten everything out.

 

~~~~~~

  
  


____WADE

 

Now that he’d been off the streets for several days, it was time to hit the ground running.  Wade relished being in his suit. He was scary for all the right reasons instead of all the wrong ones.  When he walked into Weasel’s bar with his suit on, everybody, including Weasel, knew that he meant business.

“I’ve got nothing for you, Wade.”

What the fuck.  “Bullshit, you asshat.  Why is it that every time I’ve come marching in here,  _ needing _ a fucking job, you’re fresh out?”

“I just am.  You think you’re the only mercenary out there?  Just because you got the most kickass costume?”

Wade pounded his fist on the bar.  “Save a job for me, Weasel! Seriously.  I  _ need this shit. _ ”

“Why?  Tell me why you  _ need _ this job, Wade.”  

“Pour me a drink first.  One that’s on the house.”

Wade swiveled around on his barstool distractedly while Weasel eyed him.  “You don’t just get to proclaim that your drink is ‘on the house.’ That’s my job.  That’s what the bartender says when he fucking likes you.”

“Good thing you like me, then.”

“Do I?”  But Weasel started pouring him a glass all the same.  Just the sound of the ice cubes clinking into a low-ball made Wade’s mouth water.  He needed something brown and painful after the roller coaster that had been Peter’s second heat.  There was no attempt to nurse it, either, when Weasel skidded the full glass in Wade’s direction; he grabbed it, pulled his mask up past his nose, and let the alcohol burn him all in one go.  Judging by the taste, it was cheap whiskey. Wade probably shouldn’t have expected anything else for free. “So, you said you’d tell me why you  _ need _ this job that I don’t have.  Did you spend all your money on Spider-Man this weekend?”

Wade laughed.  “It’s going to take more than a few nights at a fancy hotel to wipe me out.  You know I’ve got more than that stockpiled.”

“I know.  Now I just wish you’d tell me where.”

“You’d have better chances murdering me and claiming an insurance policy on me than you would of stealing my savings.  And I’m fucking immortal, so figure that one out.”

Someone at the end of the bar who looked like he’d committed his fair number of homicides ordered a strawberry margarita.  Wade let Weasel fix it up and occupied himself with checking one of his phones -- the phone that Peter had the number for. The only text from his baby boy since Friday was the one this morning, in response to Wade’s request that Peter have a good day at school.  It was actually a picture message, a horribly-aimed, blurry snapshot of the bottom half of Peter’s face and part of his neck and shoulder. Petey’s pink tongue was hanging out from between his lips in an exasperated expression, and the caption read,  **I’ll try, but I’m probably going to get expelled.**

Wade had texted back,  **More time for fun things ;)**

Peter hadn’t responded to that.  It was crazy how much Wade missed him, even though he’d only been apart from him for half of a day.

“All right, dude, tell me what your deal is now.”

Wade shoved his phone back in one of his many pockets and ran his gloved finger over the rim of the empty low-ball.  “It’s just been a somewhat-stressful weekend, as you might have guessed. I learned way more about Omegas than I ever knew before.  And it kind of makes me want to kill somebody.”

“Trouble in paradise, Monsieur Lovemaker?”

Wade rolled his eyes, which was quite the feat through the mask, but he made sure to take it nice and slow so that Weasel wouldn’t miss it.  “No. The issue isn’t with Spidey, anyway. It’s with the fact that he apparently has to function with the hormonal emotion range of the bottom of the Mariana Trench to the top of fucking Mount Everest.  Like, it just sounds  _ exhausting _ to even  _ exist _ as an Omega in heat.”

“But I bet it makes him one horny bastard, doesn’t it?”

{ _ Oh God I’d love to shove Arthur right into his carotid artery. _ }

“That is none of your goddamn business,” Wade snapped.  He had no idea why he was suddenly pissed at Weasel for asking a simple question with a simple answer, but he was.  White box told him to change the subject, so he did. “I just found out some pretty damn good news.”

“Aww, you’re going to be a father?”

{ _ It would be so easy.  Just whip out one of the katanas and his head would be on the floor in an instant.  There’s a fucking job for you. _ }

If Wade hadn’t known Weasel and his particular brand of humor for years, he might have been tempted to follow through with Yellow’s suggestion.  But he knew that Weasel didn’t mean anything by what he was saying. He just had a douchey sense of what was funny. Deadpool often did, too.

All the same, the asshole still wasn’t saving any work for him, and that was about as close to a capital crime as Wade could think of.  “No, not even close. But, you know what? If you don’t have a job for me, you don’t deserve the good news. I’ll go out and find my own shit, like Spidey does.  Just run around town until something happens.”

Weasel cocked his eyebrow at Wade.  “You’re a vigilante hero now, huh?”

“Hey, don’t get any fucking cute ideas.  I’m just bored.”

His friend turned toward the back of the bar and grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose from the shelf.  How Weasel could ever afford to get Grey Goose in here was a mystery. Weasel poured a shot glass of the vodka and slid it to Wade, which admittedly caught him by surprise.  Weasel was usually a cheapskate, evidenced by the horrible whiskey he’d been given only a few minutes before. “Here, have a shot on me, then. My buddy Deadpool, keeping New York safe.”

“Thanks.”  Wade downed the shot, which was a hell of a lot smoother than most of the liquor Wade usually imbibed, and casually tossed the shot glass back toward his friend.  Weasel was so used to people throwing shit at him that he caught it easily. “But I seriously expect a job the next time I pop my head in here. Otherwise it’s gonna be somebody’s head on the floor.”

“Noted.  You’re still my favorite psychopath.  Now get the fuck out and entertain yourself.  I got other patrons to deal with.”

Of course, Wade could have stayed in the seedier part of town, where Weasel’s bar was, hoping for some activity.  But as seedy as it looked, it was actually pretty oddly safe. Probably due to all the mercenaries running around out of Weasel’s bar.

Instead, Wade found himself catching the subway toward Queens, riding along next to some passengers who seemed more than happy to let him have his own bench.  He didn’t get off quite all the way in Forest Hills -- that would have been a little  _ too _ obvious -- but he got off a few stops away and cut a crooked path toward the more urban parts of Queens.  It was a little incredible how loud it still was, even on a Tuesday night. Cars honked, traffic roared by on Queens Boulevard, and some assholes were playing deafening music out of their open apartment window.  The fact that Spidey had keyed-up senses 24/7 and had to live somewhat in the midst of all this was strangely upsetting.

Although Wade hadn’t yet admitted it to himself, part him hoped he’d run into Peter tonight.  He had no idea if the kid was going to be on patrol; it was only the memory of how much Peter had fought to maintain some semblance of control during his heat that made Wade think Peter would give anything to be on the streets tonight.

It was already after dark, though, and it occurred to Wade that maybe he already missed him.  Spidey sometimes went out webbing right after school. That was something he’d especially done back as a sophomore in high school, when Wade had first met Peter.  When he’d first seen Peter in action, tossing webs in his super-sexy skin-tight outfit.

Even though he’d seen every part of Peter now, the memory still made him feel warm.

But...Peter had been in heat until this morning, and Wade had made sure he went straight to school, so that meant he hadn’t seen his aunt or his friends since Friday.  The chances that Peter would ditch them all immediately just to patrol seemed slim. It made more sense that he’d do a nighttime prowl.

Still, a good hour passed with no sign of the red and blue suit.  It was a pretty calm Tuesday, too. The good weather seemed to have put all the baddies in high spirits and nobody was committing crimes tonight.  Wade killed time by climbing up a random fire escape and sitting on the edge of the roof above a sandwich shop. He dangled his legs over the gutter and played “I Spy” with the boxes.

“Damnit, White, stop fucking winning,” Wade swore after White box somehow won five rounds in a row.

[ _ I can’t help it.  I’m our logical side. _ ]

{ _ Don’t you mean our pain-in-the-ass side?  I vote we have a mutiny and kick you out. _ }

[ _ You guys would probably get yourselves killed in two seconds without me. _ ]

“All right, my turn, damn.”  Wade peered around the skyline.  “I spy with my little eye…”

Just then, Wade heard it.  A strange sort of pressurized  _ thwip _ sound that brought to mind Silly String being forced from its can.  Wade gasped audibly. “Spidey!”

[ _ Wait.  You’re supposed to let us guess, numbnuts, not tell us what you see.  No wonder I fucking win all the time. _ ]

Wade tuned out the boxes and spun in the direction of the sound.  Sure enough, after a couple more  _ thwip _ noises, Spider-Man appeared from behind an apartment complex.  As he flew through the air, the warm streetlights danced off his metallic suit.

“Ooh, he’s in the Iron Spider costume!” Wade said excitedly.  “SPIDEY. HEY SPIDEY, OVER HERE!” He jumped up and down like a maniac.

Spidey’s head turned to where Wade was and, after maneuvering a change of direction, webbed himself up onto the roof next door.  Wade waited for Peter to jump over to his roof, but he didn’t. There was a whole street-sized space between them.

“What’s up, baby boy?” Wade called over the space.

The Iron Spider suit was a little unnerving.  Wade knew it was the same Peter in it, but the shininess made his baby boy look like something out of an alien movie.  All the same, it still did amazing things for his spidey-ass, not to mention the way the suit seemed to accentuate his spidey-abs.  Wade wanted to crack the metal open and get to his soft, kissable boy underneath.

“What are you doing here, Wade?”  Peter sounded a little less excited than Wade had pictured in his head, but he supposed it was rare for Deadpool to get all the way out to Queens.  Maybe he was being too clingy?

“Dunno why, but I can’t stay away, Petey.  Could have looked for crime somewhere else, but I ended up here.”  He was just being honest.

Peter looked down, and his suit’s eyes blinked shut.

[ _ Something’s not right. _ ]

Wade took a step toward the edge of the roof, closer to Peter.  “Hey. What’s wrong? Did something happen today? Did you get more shit for missing school?”  He swallowed. “Did you get expelled, actually? Is your principal that much of a shithead?”

Peter shook his head, then opened his eyes and looked up.

When he spoke through the suit, his voice sounded like an echo of Peter’s.  “When were you going to tell me you intended to bond with me?”

It felt like an ice cube slipped down Wade’s throat and into his stomach.  { _ Oh shit. _ }

“What do you mean?”

Peter passed his hand over the top of his suit, as if he wanted to run his fingers through his hair but couldn’t.  “When were you going to inform me,” he said more slowly, but with more frustration in his voice, “that you had the intention of bonding with me?”

Jesus, why did Petey sound so mad?  “I...I guess when it came up, baby boy.  How did you...how did you find out I wanted…?”

Peter laughed, cutting Wade off, but it wasn’t a funny laugh.  It was a scathing laugh, something he’d never heard from Peter before.  “You don’t think the fact that you’ve bitten me on multiple occasions tipped me off, maybe?”

“I don’t -- ”  Wade was struggling for something to say.  He hadn’t anticipated talking to Peter about this so soon.  He hadn’t thought Peter would take it so poorly; the idea of bonding sometime down the line had been exciting to Wade, but Peter was acting like Wade had just announced an intent to murder the kid instead.  “I know it’s early on, but aren’t you at all...haven’t you been at all interested...in….?”

“No, see, wait,” Peter said hurriedly.  “Because that’s the thing that kills me, Wade.  Because how am I even supposed to know what I want?  Maybe...maybe none of this is real. What you...what I...”  For a second, his voice faltered, so Peter took a step toward Wade instead.  It was nothing like the step Wade had taken towards Peter. Wade’s step had been to close the distance between them, even by an inch.  Peter’s step seemed like it was meant to crush the space between them. “ _ You’re _ the Alpha,  _ you’re _ the adult.  And you thought you’d just, what.  Take advantage of me or something?”

“Baby boy, I never…”

“We’ve spent two heats together, Wade.  Two. I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

There was some note in Peter’s voice that Wade had heard before.  Because it wasn’t just pure anger, or pure disgust. There was something else there, too.

“I’m sorry I bit you, really.  But there was no harm -- ”

“No harm!”  Peter let out a frustrated yell and grabbed his masked face in his hands.  Wade watched Peter pace for a moment, alarm creeping into his body. It was like watching a wild animal.  He’d never seen an Omega act so aggressively before, but then again Peter wasn’t just an Omega. He was an Omega with powers that gave him Alpha characteristics.  Sure, his baby boy wasn’t on heat suppressants now, but that didn’t mean he  _ couldn’t _ feel Alpha-like aggression.  Then, suddenly, Peter whipped toward Wade.  “No harm?” he repeated, so quietly that Wade felt the whiplash of emotions.  What the fuck was going on?

“Petey -- ”

“Here’s the harm, Wade.  For a minute, I thought I actually...I thought I actually  _ felt something _ for you.  I thought you cared about me.  But if you cared, you wouldn’t…”  And now Peter’s voice was shaking.  Something was seriously wrong. He couldn’t understand why Peter was taking even the thought of bonding with Wade so badly.  And the fact that Peter was insinuating that he...that he didn’t like Wade -- maybe he hated spending heats with him. Maybe the idea of bonding was disgusting.  The notion stopped Wade’s breath.

In the distance, the relatively calm Queens night was broken up by the sound of sirens.  Peter looked over his shoulder wistfully, as though he regretted, for a moment, that he was bound by responsibility to go seek out the source of the sound.  

“Peter,” Wade gasped.  He still couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t think we should do this anymore, Wade.”  The voice coming out of the mask was still shaking.  Wade felt as though the ground was shifting beneath him.  “We’ll find some way around it. I’ll...I’ll talk to Mr. Stark about finding another Alpha for my next heat.”

[ _ Speak, you son of a bitch.  You’re losing him! _ ]

“Peter!” Wade gasped, and took one more step forward.  His foot was on the edge of the building. “Wait! What...what did you expect, from all this?  What did you want, going in, if not bonding some day? If you just wanted somebody to help you through your heats, that’s fine, I can do that.  We don’t have to call it off. I can just be your fuckbuddy, we don’t -- ”

Peter’s suit eyes shut again, blocking out the light from behind them.  Then, quietly, with the conviction fitting of a hero, he spoke. “It’s a little too late for that.  All I wanted was the truth, and a choice.”

In a moment, he’d turned away, leapt off his roof, and was casting his webs toward the sound of the sirens.

Wade stood rooted to the gravel top of the building.  The warmth of the mild evening seemed to have disappeared in a matter of minutes.  As the sirens faded, Queens never seemed so quiet.

{ _ What just happened? _ }

[ _ Peter found out that we want a future, and he doesn’t.  Can you really blame him, anyway? I guess we were wrong to think that he could ever think about us differently than anybody else would. _ ]

{ _ Does this mean we don’t get to bang him anymore? _ }

“Can’t you two fuckers just shut UP?” Wade bellowed suddenly, and, like a miracle, his head went silent.

Except that left him with the echoes of what Peter had said to him.

And suddenly, Wade realized what he’d heard in Peter’s voice, besides the anger.  The tone, underlying every word Peter had said, was the same tone the kid used when in the height of his heat, when he was in pain from how empty he felt.  It was loneliness.

Wade took a step back from the edge of the roof.  Then another. Then another. With as much power as he could put into his legs, he took off at a run and jumped from his building toward the one Peter had been standing on.

He caught the edge -- barely -- and pulled himself up to where Peter had been.  Desperately, he rolled his mask up and sniffed the air.

Wade wanted to smell Peter.  He wanted to smell the clean spice, the scent that filled his nostrils when he was filling his baby boy.  He wanted to pick up on a hint -- something, anything -- that would tell him why Peter had suddenly turned on him.  If he could smell just a hint of stress or fear in that clean spice, that would tell him something. That would give him hope.  Hope that maybe his baby boy had felt compelled to end things by some outside factor, and that Wade could fix it, could make Peter feel safe enough again that everything would be okay.

Of course, though, there was nothing.  Peter’s new suit kept the outside out and kept Peter in.

It didn’t matter anyway.  Logically, he knew that Peter wouldn’t smell of clean spice now.  He’d been awake when that beautiful scent had started to be overrun that morning, when Peter had shifted in his sleep as the heat retreated and the full strength of his powers came surging back.  The clean spice would be gone, replaced by the muddy, dangerous scent that Peter’s powers forced on his body.

As Wade fell to his knees on the roof, wishing that he could just rip his own heart out of his chest rather than hear Peter reject him over and over again in his mind, he realized that this was the first time he’d tasted just how dangerous Peter could actually be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I normally update this fic about every week, but I found out today that this week is Starker Week, and I do have a little weak spot for Peter/Tony fics. So I decided to jump on that bandwagon. I probably won't do the whole week, but I put out a one-shot today. Check for that under my works. Hopefully I either get back to this work later this week or next week. I'm also going on vacation, so I'll either have all the time to write, or my family will pounce on me and I'll have none of the time. You know how it goes.


	17. Ache Of Frustration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR BEING PATIENT.
> 
> Sorry I didn't let you all know that I wasn't going to be posting for two weeks; I didn't know myself. Basically, after I posted on the 6th, I realized that the next week was "Starker Week 2018," and I ended up writing three one-shot Starker fics in three days. If you haven't checked those out, please do. :) Then I went on a week-long family reunion vacation, and even though I brought my computer, I just did not get a chance to really sit down and write.
> 
> This chapter has a lot going on, but I hope you enjoy it. I am planning to get back to my normal weekly posting now.
> 
> Please leave comments; I love reading them! And I love everyone's advice and suggestions.

___PETER

 

His own bed had never felt so good.

Everything about the night had gone so wrong, exacerbating what had been an entirely shit day already.  The sirens had turned out to be an ambulance and a police car, responding to a health emergency in the residential area of Forest Hills, not far from where MJ lived.  It turned out that a kid -- a  _ kid _ \-- had choked on some snacks up in her treehouse, and her younger sister hadn’t known what to do.  By the time the ambulance showed up, with Peter trailing after it...well. He was already emotionally wrecked, but then an EMT had seen him and handed him the screaming sister, who couldn’t have been more than six years old.  She’d been crying that it was all her fault. He’d never felt so helpless.

By the time he crawled into his window and shed his Iron Spider suit into the compact chest-plate, he had no energy left for anything.  Still, he was already in so much trouble at school, and his homework was sitting, unfinished, on top of his backpack. For another two hours, he scribbled chemical equations into his notebook, underlined terms in his political science packet, and struggled through a few pages of  _ Things Fall Apart _ .  It seemed like a fitting novel for the end of the worst day ever.

It was easily midnight before he dragged himself onto his lower bunk.  Everything hurt. He couldn’t figure out why -- it wasn’t like he got injured.  His body had already recovered from his heat. But yet everything seemed to ache, like the weight of his mental state had settled into his limbs.

When he switched off his light, the image of Wade standing on the opposite rooftop, looking devastated, swam into his mind.

Why had Wade bitten him?  Why had he done that? Why hadn’t he just let their relationship bloom naturally, and given Peter every chance to fall in love with him the way he knew he could have?  

There was no stopping the tears that started burning his eyes for the third time that day.  He flipped over and buried his face into his pillow. This was all because he was a stupid fucking Omega.  If he had just been a Beta, maybe he could have had a normal fucking life. The wave of anger that washed over him suddenly quelled the tears and ignited tension in his muscles instead.  He felt like his body had been betraying him since he presented as an Omega. No matter what he did, it seemed to thwart him. Heat suppressants hadn’t really worked without serious side effects.  His regulators were okay but the heats themselves were torture. Then, Wade had bitten him. And, somewhere, deep down, he wasn’t even as angry with Wade as he was with his own body. Yes, Wade had bitten him, but Peter had felt the same overwhelming impulse to bite Wade, too.  He couldn’t hold Wade to a much higher standard than he held himself. The ridiculousness of the situation was that his Omega body then decided that it would then inject him with hormones to create emotions that shouldn’t really be there, a connection that didn’t exist otherwise.

“This is all bullshit,” he groaned into the dark underbelly of the upper bunk.

He’d punished Wade already.  It was nearly impossible to think about anything but the way Wade’s voice had sounded torn apart.

It was time to punish himself.

He’d never gotten himself off as a punishment for something, but for some reason, it seemed like the natural way to beat his Omega side into submission.  After all, it was the Omega part of him that compelled him to be horny and to reproduce. So that was the part of him that had to suffer.

Peter threw the blankets off himself and forced the waistband of his pajama pants down past his hips.  He was flaccid, of course, but with a little spit and his hand, he slowly coaxed himself to hardness. Then he went rough and fast.

The pleasure that sparked into his pelvis pissed him off.  He didn’t deserve to feel good; his body didn’t deserve to feel its nerve endings light up with friction.  But he didn’t stop. Peter spat into his hand again and stripped himself until the skin started to feel raw.

Of course, his orgasm was somewhere distant, it felt like.  It was playing behind the mental blockage that was  _ Wade _ .  Every thought of Wade had darkened in his mind, seemed infinitely ruined by what had happened -- what Peter had done.  Yet, he couldn’t get to the peak without allowing himself  _ something _ .

He thought of the most punishing thing he could: Wade’s fingers driving into him again and again while Peter was nearly boneless on the hotel room floor.  As his mind grasped onto the image, he felt it work in his body; the orgasm that had been out of reach was now circling closer and closer. Peter focused in on the feeling of Wade abusing his prostate; he wasn’t even sure if it was a real memory, or if he’d made it up in his mind.  All the same, the pleasure was climbing in his abdomen until he felt his muscles tighten -- 

Peter let go of himself just as he crossed the threshold.  He grabbed the sheet to anchor his hand down so he wouldn’t try to save the sensation; instead, he tipped his head back and closed his eyes while his cock bobbed through his ruined orgasm.  Warm cum dribbled onto his stomach, but the pleasure hadn’t come with it. A distinct ache of frustration settled into his pelvis and chest.

That was what he had wanted.

Unceremoniously, Peter ripped a few tissues from the box on his bedside stand wiped up the evidence before tossing the crumpled paper into his wastebasket.

When he turned over, he buried his hands in the blankets in front of him, steeling himself against the desire in his limbs.

_ That’s what you get, _ he thought ruefully.

  
  
  


~~~~~

 

Peter woke up to the sounds of sirens and an aching erection.

It was impossible not to groan in frustration.  Light was creeping into the sky, but the clock on the wall told him it was still shy of 6:00 in the morning.  He’d been planning to catch the last possible train to school to catch a little more sleep; instead, Peter was throwing off the blankets.

He could feel that the front of his boxers was damp; he stripped them off and yanked a new pair out of his drawer.  It would have been great to get a proper shower, to get a good breakfast in, to pack his homework carefully, but that just wasn’t his life.  After thrusting his head out the window to see which direction the emergency vehicles were headed ( _ shit, there’s a fire truck _ ), Peter took roughly two minutes to slam everything he needed into his backpack, grab a muffin from the kitchen, and press the small chest-plate of the Iron Spider suit onto his torso.  He held it there for a half-second until the nanotech sprawled out from the sides, wrapped around him, and cascaded down his limbs. It was uncomfortably snug against his crotch, but his erection was mercifully relaxing.  The other suit was still dirty, currently thrown under the bed. At least Mr. Stark had told him to wear this suit anyway, until the Hydra threat was gone.

“Bye, May!” he called back into the apartment as he slung his backpack over his shoulders and pushed the window up over his head.  She didn’t even respond before he slammed the window shut, turned, and cast a webline out over the street. The sirens were heading towards Manhattan.  If they’d called in a Queens fire unit for an emergency in Manhattan, there was definitely something big going down.

Peter webbed between buildings carefully, swinging low to the ground between parked cars and people heading out for work.  He preferred to stay higher up when he could, but the buildings in Queens weren’t tall enough for him to get a good swing and stay above everything.  People seemed relatively unfazed to see him webbing by, though. That was a side effect of being Spider-Man in the same neighborhood for three years. Occasionally he got a scream out of an excitable kid, but most people saw him as a general unavoidable nuisance, the same as morning traffic or cicadas in August.  One coffee shop owner angrily flailed her sweeping broom at him as he swung by; he simply tucked himself up, sailed over her, and cast another web.

“Sorry, lady!” he yelled through his mask, even though the last thing he wanted to do was apologize.  Today, he felt a little more like giving her the middle finger. But he was a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, even on his bad days.

“Come on, Peter, lighten up,” he murmured to himself as he casted and caught his next jet of webbing.  A few more blocks and he’d be getting into the taller buildings around Queensboro Plaza, then he’d be near the Queensboro Bridge Lower Roadway.

As soon as he passed the tallest building, he saw what the sirens were all headed for.

Over the iconic New York skyline, a pillar of smoke was reaching up to the slowly-lightening blue sky.  It looked like the source was one of the tall buildings bordering lower Manhattan.

“Oh shit,” Peter breathed.  He flung himself off his last web and landed on a semi truck that was flying along the Lower Roadway.  “Karen, can you zoom in on that at all?”

**It’s a little too far for the camera in the suit.  However, judging by the current wind pattern and the trajectory of the smoke, it appears that the fire may be in one of the taller office buildings near Madison Square Park.**

“That’s near Dr. Thompson.”

**Dr. Thompson’s building does house restaurants that use open flame.**

“Fuck.”  Peter could feel the gears changing in the truck underneath him; it wasn’t going fast enough.  Behind him, a van was speeding along in the left lane of the bridge. He turned, gripped the edge of the truck, and then timed his jump.  His landing was so light that he hoped the van driver wouldn’t even notice anything.

As they made their way closer to Manhattan, Peter stared at the smoke.   _ Please don’t let Dr. Thompson be in there.   _ Then, unbidden, he thought,  _ Please let Wade come. _

It took five more vehicle changes and another painstaking seven or so minutes before Peter was finally a block away from the pillar of smoke heading up toward the sky.  His arms were protesting with pain because of his pace, but there was no chance of slowing down now.

**The fire is coming from the Dr. Thompson’s office building, somewhere between the 20th and 25th floors.**

Distracting red and blue lights filled the street below the front of the building.  Peter focused his attention upward instead. Smoke was pouring out of several floors about three-fourths of the way up the building.   _ Please don’t let there be too much structural damage. _

_ Please let Wade come. _

“Oh my god, brain, shut up,” Peter muttered as he landed on a lower building across the crowded street from the office building.  With a shrug, he slid his backpack off his shoulders and webbed it to a generator on the roof next to him. His brain seemed to be trained on Wade at the moment, but he stared at the building, quick calculations running through his head.  “Karen, are there any people on the affected floors? What kind of situation am I looking at?”

**My sensors show that the largest concentration of smoke is coming from the 22nd floor.  The building is almost empty. There are five individuals in the building; three appear to be emergency rescue workers.  Two people are on the twenty-first floor.**

“That’s Dr. Thompson’s floor.  Am I going to cause an explosion if I break the window?”

**If you enter a few floors below the fire, you should be able to avoid exacerbating the situation.**

“Okay, I’m aiming for the nineteenth.”

Peter held up both wrists, double-tapped his palms, and felt the mechanisms on either side launch out a jet of web fluid that solidified into fibers as it hit the air.  As soon as the fibers hit and stuck to the side of the building, he grabbed the threads, took a few steps back, felt the tension, and then rocketed himself forward. The wind was roaring outside his suit as he flipped himself in the air.

Peter hit the window with his feet first.  Shards of glass sprinkled inward; he skidded across the thin carpet into a mess of office chairs between two rows of desks.  He shoved a tipped chair off himself and stood up; compared to the whistling air outside, the inside of the building seemed eerily quiet.  However, his spidey-sense was softly buzzing in the back of his neck; perhaps a reminder of the fact that a fire was apparently just a few floors above.

By the time he got out of the office and to the central elevator, the smoke smell was palpable.  Taking the elevator was a no-go, so he tore open the steel door to the stairwell and took the steps a flight at a time.

“Karen, give me the location of those people on the twenty-first floor,” Peter demanded as he reached the door leading out.

The display in front of his eyes seemed to see through the walls of the building, and Karen’s analysis zeroed in on two human-shaped figures that were in a room at the end of the hall.  Peter pushed the door from the stairwell open so hard that it came off its hinges. The hallway around him seemed to be hazy with smoke, but so far he couldn’t see actual flames or feel the heat of a blaze.  

**It appears that the two individuals are a woman and a man.**

“It’s gotta be Dr. Thompson,” Peter panted as he tore down the hallway.   _ And Wade?  Maybe Wade is already here? _

He didn’t have time to chastise his own brain for inserting Wade where Wade didn’t belong.  With a sliding skid, he came to the end of the hallway and made a grab for the doorknob into Dr. Thompson’s office.  It was locked. Peter raised his fist to knock on the door before realizing how incredibly stupid that was. “All right, I’m coming in!”

His super strength blazed along his muscles as he shoved his shoulder into the door; the wood gave as though it were made of cardboard.  On his screen, the sensors were going crazy, searching for the two figures who had been detected in the room a moment before.

No one was there.

Instead, the window -- the same window that Peter had come in a month ago to get his regulators -- was wide open, and the smoke that had been in the room was billowing out.  In an instant, he was there, hands gripping the steel frame as he leaned out to look down, but there was no one falling and the only commotion on the sidewalk below had to do with the crowd that had gathered outside the perimeter that the police and firefighters had set up.

“What the actual fuck?” Peter swore, and turned around to survey the office.  Everything seemed in its place. “Karen, scan the building for people again!”

**There are three emergency rescue workers currently ascending via the stairwell from the 11th to the 12th floor.  Since your entrance, five more personnel have entered at the ground floor.**

Peter swallowed and turned around again, unsure of what to do.  “But...where did the people in  _ this room _ go?”

**I’m not sure.**

“But they couldn’t have gone out the window -- there’s nothing there.”  He turned to look for other exits. “The door I came through is the only way in or out.”

Karen didn’t answer him, perhaps because he didn’t ask a question.  Peter realized he was panting, and swallowed again, trying to keep his breathing under control.  Maybe the sensor had screwed up, and seen people that weren’t there? That had never happened before.  He doubted that Tony Stark would have given him any technology that could have failed so wildly.

**Peter, your heart rate is very elevated.  I recommend that you exit the building and find a place to sit down.**

“But Dr. Thompson --  _ Wade _ \-- they were in here!”  The words tumbled out of his mouth, seemed to echo inside the metallic mask.

**I can’t be 100 percent certain, but I don’t believe that the two individuals in this room were Dr. Lisa Thompson or Wade Wilson.  My initial scan did not match my records of their respective heights and weights.**

Peter blinked, and distantly he could hear the miniature gears in his suit eyepieces moving.  “Who else would it have been?”

**Perhaps the fire was arson.**

“But there’s no actual fire on this floor!  Why would they even be in this room -- ”

Suddenly, a thought hit Peter so hard that he almost felt it in his stomach.  He whipped toward the locked Ikea cabinet in the corner. Its padlock was hanging from the latch, seemingly secure.

Even when he jiggled it, it seemed locked.

All the same, he could feel apprehension tightening his throat.  Why would two unidentified people -- who just  _ disappeared _ the moment that Peter arrived -- have been in this room, of all rooms in the building?  

Curiosity got the better of him, and even though there was a voice in the back of his head telling him not to do it, Peter looked at the padlock in his hand, then dug his finger into the arch of the lock and pulled with just a little extra strength.  The metal snapped in his hands.

The inside of the cabinet was organized by shelf, with lots of little glass containers, a shelf containing individually labeled boxes, and several large plastic bins below.  In the corner of the fourth shelf down, there was a heavy-duty case with a piece of tape stuck on it, and the letters “DP” written there. The reminder that Wade had come to Dr. Thompson’s office multiple times to work out the perfect birth control formula made Peter feel like throwing up.  Part of him wanted to look inside the case -- to see either the research, or maybe the end product, that Wade and Dr. Thompson had worked on together -- but the other part of him couldn’t take it.  _ Why torture yourself, _ it seemed to say.

Instead, his metallic suit gloves settled on an unlabeled plastic box that took up about a quarter of a shelf.  Inside, there were tiny manilla envelopes, each carefully stamped with a name in the upper left-hand corner. Peter tried not to focus on any of the names, knowing that it would be an invasion of privacy, to say the least.  Besides, the one that he was looking for was only about five envelopes down -- it was stamped with a simple “SPMN” at the top. Peter had to appreciate Dr. Thompson’s instinct to shorten his made-up name -- and Wade’s -- for the sake of being inconspicuous.

The envelope wasn’t sealed shut, but rather the sealing flap was just folded down into the envelope, so it was impossible to tell whether it had been tampered with that way.  Peter slid the circular container out of the envelope and into his hand, and there were his regulators, in their neat little case, all organized the same way that they had been.

It seemed stupid, but his heartbeat was still racing.

**Peter,** Karen inserted, almost gently,  **I still recommend that you exit the building and find a place to calm down.  No one is here now and emergency personnel are on the sixteenth floor.**

“Okay.”  He still didn’t know who had been in the room, or what they’d been after, but Karen was right.  There wasn’t much he could do about it now.

Automatically, he began to slide the case of regulators back into their manilla envelope, but then he paused.  He’d been planning to come pick up his regulators anyway; now they were in his hand. 

“I’ll just tell Mr. Stark to tell Dr. Thompson that I’ve taken them,” Peter said out loud.  There was a strange sort of adrenaline buzzing in his ears.

**And if you leave now, you may still be able to get to school on time.**

Oh, yeah.  School.

He hastily closed the cabinet, hung the lock the best he could through the latch, and webbed it shut.  At least Dr. Thompson would know that he’d been there, once she saw the webbing. Then, noting that it was not going to be easy to get back to Queens before the first bell, Peter turned toward the window, leapt out of it, swung around the corner, and grabbed his backpack on the way to midtown Manhattan, the sun now blazing up into the sky over the East River.

 

~~~~~~

 

Of course, he was late, flying into the schoolyard like a maniac just as the final bell was ringing harshly from above the main door.

His shoe was half-on as he tripped over the lawn leading up to Midtown Tech.  His Iron Spider suit was sitting heavily in the bottom of his backpack, folded into its chest-plate, jostling about as Peter examined his options.  About halfway through his freshman year, the school had added extra security during the day, so he’d become accustomed to seeing an officer standing near the front office, monitoring the doors day in and day out.  Anybody who came in after the last warning bell had to stop by the office and sign in. Probably the worst thing about it was that it was just a stupid system in general. The students all had ID cards and Peter hated the fact that skirting into the building with less than sixty seconds before the final bell meant that you had to sacrifice that precious minute to scribble your name down on a piece of paper.  If you came in after the final bell, then you were really stuck.

Knowing how Principal Morita felt about him at the moment, heading in through the front doors was the last thing Peter wanted to do.

Instead, Peter found himself eyeing the windows at the side of the building, calculating in his head where his classrooms were relative to the outside.  If he went in the fourth-floor boys’ bathroom window (which was easy to spot, because the bathroom windows were slimmer than the classroom ones), he’d be close to his first-period class, and he could just say he’d been sick.  Hell, he’d even tell his teacher that he’d been shitting his brains out, if it got him enough sympathy to get off the hook.

He couldn’t use webbing without potentially arousing suspicion.  Instead, Peter just quickly glanced around, then started making his way up the side of the building by his fingertips and the toes of his sneakers.  There was a small thrill in his stomach when he remembered that the last time he climbed his school was to see Wade; immediately the thought was tinged with bitterness and the thrill flipped to nausea.  Peter swallowed it down and undid the top button of his plaid shirt under his sweater so he could breathe a little better.

The pane of the bathroom window was dirty on the outside.  He pressed his fingers against it and gingerly gave it a shove; it moved upwards with a groaning squeak.

All at once, he was hit with three things: the first was the smell of urine, which would have been faint to anyone except someone with super-powered senses; the second was the realization that he’d thrown up in this bathroom on a number of occasions, back when he was on heat suppressants, and he knew for a fact that it was a relatively high-traffic bathroom; and the third was that someone was in the large accessible stall nearest the window.  

_ Fuck. _

Unfortunately, he’d already opened the window, which meant that he’d been heard.  Despite the tingle that was now racing up the back of his neck, Peter ducked into the bathroom headfirst, fell into a somersault, and popped up to turn back and close the window -- 

“Parker?”

Holy fucking shit.

Peter felt his spider-sense rocket into a full-blown shock down his spine, and he had to clench his fists to ward off the fight-or-flight response that it shot into his muscles.

Principal Morita was standing in front of him in the bathroom, between him and the window.

The man looked dumbfounded.

“Did you just come in from  _ outside _ ?”

“No, I -- ”

“How did you get in on the fourth floor?”

“Principal Morita, I didn’t -- ”  Peter turned around, trying to come up with an explanation as to how he got into the bathroom without coming in through the door.  “I mean, I’m just -- ”

It took Peter a moment of babbling before he realized that his principal’s face had gone from shocked to resigned in a matter of seconds.  Peter trailed off, staring at the man in front of him.

Principal Morita looked at the window, looked at Peter, then reached over and shoved the window pane down with a little more force than necessary.  He flicked on the hot water tap on the sink and started washing his hands, as if they were normal people crossing paths in the bathroom, about to have a normal conversation.

“You know what, Parker?  I actually don’t want to know how you got in.”

“Um.  Okay.”

Morita took several pumps of foaming soap into his palm and scrubbed at his fingers like a doctor prepping for surgery.  Peter tried to force away the feeling like he was the one about to be laid open on the table. “What I’m far more interested in knowing is why you seem so keen to throw away your future.”

Peter stared.  The pit of his stomach had turned into what felt like ice -- there was a note of finality in his principal’s words that he could not miss.  When Peter opened his mouth, his voice barely came out as a whisper. “Am I expelled?”

There was a long moment where Principal Morita finished soaping his hands, rinsed them under the sink, and nudged the handle off with his suit-jacketed forearm.  He shook his hands off over the bowl of the sink before turning toward Peter and sighing. “Do you want to be?”

“No,” Peter said earnestly, desperately.  If he got expelled, everything would go up in smoke.

The edges of Principal Morita’s mouth twitched, almost like he wanted to smile.  He grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser behind him. “See, that’s the thing that makes you such an enigma to me, Parker.  I can tell, just by talking to you, that you’re eager to learn. You’re bright as hell.” Morita tore another paper towel from the dispenser, and looked down at his hands for a moment.  “I know your parents aren’t with us anymore, and your uncle died a couple years ago, and your financial situation might not be the best. That’s enough to make any kid crack.”

However many beats per minute Peter’s heart had been doing in Dr. Thompson’s office a half-hour ago, it seemed like it was doing twice as many now.

The second paper towel got tossed into the garbage can, and now it was just Peter and Morita, standing across from each other in the boys’ bathroom, and Peter felt stripped bare.

“You’ve never sought out the free counseling services from the school, though, so nobody here knows the whole story of what’s going on with you.  In all the years I’ve been a principal, I’ve never seen a kid who is so  _ smart _ , who has so much  _ potential _ , just try to throw it away the month before graduation.  You know that your scholarship to ESU doesn’t mean a thing if I tell them you’re a truant now.  I don’t have to tell you that.” Principal Morita’s eyes were searching him, and Peter desperately wished he would stop.  “I know you’ve ducked out of class here and there before, and there was the whole decathlon trip thing your sophomore year.  I wrote that stuff off as lashing out because of what happened with your uncle. Then you got better, and everything seemed fine.  Now, over the last month, you’ve missed several days of school without a doctor’s note, you’re climbing in the bathroom window -- ”  The man shrugged. “I don’t know why the smartest kid here insists on being an idiot. It baffles me.”

Peter opened and closed his mouth, trying to find words.  His cheeks were burning with embarrassment, with shame. There was no question that, over the years, school had somewhat taken the backseat to being Spider-Man.  Although he felt an icy anger in his stomach at being called out, at being misunderstood, at being caught, he also realized just how much Principal Morita had tried to afford him every chance.  There were people who had been expelled for far less than Peter had done, but he’d never really entertained the idea that Morita had actually been pulling for him the whole time. 

If only Principal Morita knew everything that was on Peter’s plate, or even half of it, he’d see that Peter really was trying his best.

If only he knew that Peter was an Omega.

“Principal Morita, I...I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, I really do.”  He swallowed, finding it exceedingly hard to meet the man’s eyes, so Peter settled for somewhere on his principal’s sleeve.  “And I wish I could --  _ explain _ \-- everything that I have going on.”  Shit, when did he get so close to crying?  Peter bit the inside of his cheek, feeling his eyes burning, and his last words were quiet.  “But I can’t tell you.”

The bathroom was silent, except for the steady rush of water in the pipes that was only perceptible to Peter’s ears.

Finally, Principal Morita spoke.  “I wish you’d tell me. You know we have people here who can help, no matter what it is.  We’re on your side, Peter.”

_ Don’t cry, don’t fucking cry. _

“I know.”

Morita took a small step toward him.  “At least put my mind at ease for a minute.”  He paused, then pressed forward. “Is it drugs?”

Peter looked up.  “No,” he answered firmly.

There wasn’t any relief on the principal’s face, just determination.  “Did you get caught up in a gang?”

“No.”  Just as firmly as before.

“Are there issues at home?  Is your aunt okay?”

Peter shook his head.  “May is fine.”

“Are you getting bullied?  Is it Flash Thompson?”

“It’s not that.”

Principal Morita still wasn’t done.  “Is everything all right with your friends?  Ned? Michelle?”

Peter blinked, too stunned that his principal knew who his friends were to answer immediately.  The fact that Morita knew about Peter’s parents, about his uncle, that he lived with his aunt, that Flash was the guy that picked on him, that his best friends were Ned and MJ -- it was almost overwhelming how much the man had tried to learn about Peter, had tried to comb through his life to find the reason why Peter was now seemingly trying to fuck up his future.

“They’re fine.”

Principal Morita nodded distractedly, apparently out of questions.  “Okay, I’m glad.”

Peter unclenched his hands, which he suddenly realized had been fists the whole time he’d been in the bathroom.  He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he’d rolled in through the window; at this point, he’d experienced enough craziness in one morning that time seemed like an irrelevant construct.  All the same, he suddenly felt like he had to leave this bathroom now or he was going to absolutely lose it.

“I...I should get to class.”

Principal Morita lifted his left wrist and looked at his watch.  “Yeah, I suppose you should. I won’t hold you here any longer.”

Peter’s hands gripped the straps of his backpack.  “Okay.” His voice sounded quiet again, out of his control.  He turned to leave, then said over his shoulder, quickly, but not quite an afterthought: “Thank you.”

He was halfway down the hallway before his brain even registered the fact that he’d said it.  Whether he was thanking Principal Morita for letting him leave, or for not kicking him out of school, or for caring far more than he had imagined, even Peter didn’t know.


	18. Almost Dizzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heard from a reader that things are getting a little tense up in here. This chapter is also a bit angst-y. So I've got some warnings for you guys. If you feel like you need to skip this chapter, there will be a short summary in the end notes so you can keep up with the story while avoiding triggers.
> 
> Warnings: Mentions of murder and suicide (Wade).  
> Also, this chapter gets a little M/F flavor, although that's not really a warning.
> 
> Thank you for reading and please leave comments! I love them <3

____WADE

 

“Wade?  What the fuck are you doing here?”

“...The pleasure is all mine, I guess.”

Wade plopped down on a soft leather couch.  Ideally, he’d be in his full gear, katanas on his back, ready to un-alive some people.  God, he wanted to un-alive somebody. The last time that he’d wanted to un-alive somebody quite so badly was before he really got to team up with Spidey over the last couple years, although he always had a hankering for it.  The kid had always seemed to bring out the best in him, convincing Deadpool that there was another way to solve problems than to put a bullet in them.

Now that the problem was Peter -- or at least Wade’s relationship with Peter -- he still couldn’t exactly put a bullet in the problem.  But he’d settle for putting a bullet in literally anything or anybody else.

He’d even briefly passed over the idea of un-aliving himself, but that was much easier said than done.  Besides, it didn’t last, it made a mess, and had become something of a party trick for himself a few years back, when Vanessa had gone.  Maybe he couldn’t call it a party trick, because he only ever did it alone. With the constant commentary of the boxes up until the moment everything went black though, he almost was a party in himself; a party of one.

Wade started the evening by stuffing his suit into a duffel bag and heading towards Weasel’s bar to get a job assignment.  When he’d started tracing the familiar steps towards the decrepit establishment though, he realized that Weasel’s was maybe the last place he wanted to be.  Weasel, for all his faults, actually cared about Wade to some degree, and he would ask questions as to why Wade’s mental status had gone from “tenuous” to “psychotic” in a matter of days.  And Wade really didn’t want to answer any questions right now, particularly not about Peter. Whenever the kid even crossed his mind, he wanted to stab a knife into the side of his head, open up his skull, and pull the thought right out of his brain.  

Even so, there was one thing that he had to bring himself to do before walking away from the teenager’s life.

That was the main reason why he ended up in Tony Stark’s Manhattan penthouse in his civilian clothes.  The fact that Wade got to tell Iron Ass that the billionaire had fucked up was just icing on the chimichangas.  

“No longer a whole tower to yourself and the team; you must be downsizing,” Wade remarked, gesturing vaguely around the still-annoyingly-grand penthouse.

Stark had entered the room in just a wife-beater and track pants, like a high-end Italian mobster.  He seemed pretty shocked -- and not particularly happy -- that Wade was parked on his couch. “Well, you know, now there’s a lot less team and a lot more space upstate,” Tony said distractedly.  “I’m sorry, is there a reason you broke into my house?” Wade noted that Iron Ass was holding a scotch. God, what Wade would give to be a cheaper date. Getting drunk took about half of a bar what with the regeneration thing.  All the same, Tony Stark probably had enough money to get even Deadpool drunk a few times over. There was no harm in inquiring.

Before Wade could even ask if Stark had a bottle of something inexpensive that he wouldn’t mind parting with, Tony folded his arms and sighed.  “Is this about that fire earlier today?”

Wade mirrored Stark and folded his arms.  “I don’t know anything about a fire.”

“Really?”  Tony raised his eyebrows.  “Oh. I thought you’d have been concerned, since, you know, it was right above Dr. Thompson’s office.”

It was impossible to tell by Stark’s casual tone and facial expressions what the outcome of the fire had been.  Immediately, the boxes livened up.

[ _What?  Is she okay?_ ]

{ _How are we going to get our birth control if something happened to her?_ }

[ _We don’t need it anymore, idiot, Spidey dumped us.  But that’s not the point. We care because we’re a good person now._ ]

“Is everybody okay?” Wade cut in quickly.

“I called Dr. Thompson and she’s fine, and I didn’t hear of any casualties.”

“So what happened?”

Stark shrugged.  “Well, at first it looked like something gone wrong in that hibachi restaurant upstairs.  But there really shouldn’t have been anyone in there when the fire started, so it wasn’t like it was an open grill gone wrong or anything.  The other weird thing is that the fire was pretty contained. It was going for a solid thirty minutes and barely took a handful of firefighters to put out.  There were just furniture and cosmetic damages. The structural integrity of the building was absolutely fine.”

Wade sat forward.  Now that he knew Dr. Thompson was okay, he still couldn’t help being interested, in spite of the way that losing Peter made him kind of not want to be interested in anything.  “Any theories?”

“Arson, of course, though probably arson with a purpose -- a purpose other than property damage.”  Tony unfolded his arms to reach down and grab his scotch glass off the side table. He took a swig, which made Wade’s mouth water.  “Peter told me there were some people in the doctor’s office that just kind of disappeared when he burst in.”

“Wait.”  

{ _HE JUST MENTIONED OUR BABY BOY._ }

Wade held up a hand, willing himself not to overreact.  “What about Peter?”

Stark furrowed his brow and tipped the rest of the scotch into his mouth, leaving just the pretentious round ice ball left in the glass.  “Peter was there this morning, checking it out. I heard about the fact that Spider-Man was there from the news, of course, but he texted me later with some details and said that he took it upon himself to grab his heat regulators while he was in.”  The glass went back down to the side table. “I thought you’d have heard about it, seeing that you two are all peas and carrots these days.”

It was a good thing that Yellow took a moment to go off angrily about Stark using a _Forrest Gump_ quote, because all the air had suddenly disappeared from Wade’s lungs, and listening to Yellow was the only thing that grounded him to the present moment.

“I mean...you are close, right?  Wade?”

Fuck.

Before Wade even knew what he was doing, he was standing up off the couch, grabbing the scotch glass with its stupid fucking ice ball, and throwing it as hard as he could against the wall of Stark’s penthouse.  Tony flinched away to avoid the shards of glass that exploded back at them, yelling expletives.

It didn’t feel as therapeutic as Wade had hoped it would.

“What the hell, Wilson?!” Tony said furiously, glass shining in his hair as he straightened up.  He was holding his hands out protectively, as though Wade might combust at any moment.

{ _Let’s flay him.  Seriously, Stark needs to learn to keep his fucking smart-ass nose out of stuff._ }

“Don’t talk about Spidey.”

The anger coming off Stark was palpable.  “What? Seriously? You’re such a possessive dick now that I can’t even talk about the kid?  I set up this little arrangement between you two!” He turned away and shook the glass out of his hair.  “Fucking Christ, you can’t just chuck glasses at the wall.” The billionaire looked beside himself, then took a moment to breathe deeply.  “I have PTSD, you asshole.”

Wade shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket.  Obviously Peter hadn’t told Iron Ass anything about what had gone down between them in his text messages.  Tony didn’t know and hadn’t meant anything by bringing up Peter. All the same, he could feel his hands shaking.

“Petey and I...there’s been…”  Fuck, it was hard to say. What _could_ he even say?

{ _The best thing that’s happened to us in a long time just rejected us because he’s a young, un-wrecked kid and you’re a fucked up, hamburger-looking dude._ }

[ _Ouch._ ]

“...Peter wants a new Alpha,” was all Wade could muster.

There was a brief moment where Wade thought that maybe Tony would give him some kind words or sympathy, but clearly the man was still at the end of his tether due to the glass-smashing.  “What did you do? Did your skin put him off?”

“Fucking try me, Stark.  You’re about two seconds away from getting impaled by one of the many hidden weapons I keep on my body.”

Tony raised a pale hand in supplication.  “Okay, okay.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything.  Wade was still shaking in his hoodie, and he was pretty sure Stark could tell.  He was about ready to get out of the penthouse like a bat out of hell and kill the doorman just for a fix.

[ _This is pretty dark for a fanfic, isn’t it?_ ]

{ _Are you shitting me?  I’ve read way worse. Just gotta beef up the tags or slap a disclaimer in the notes; everybody will be fine._ }

Finally, Tony spoke.  “So you want me to find someone else for him?”

Wade clenched his fists in his pocket.  “About as much as I want to blow the Hulk.  Which, for the record, is NOT very much. But Peter wants a new Alpha, so that means I can’t be it.”

“It’s not going to be easy to find someone else who can keep up with him, judging by what Dr. Thompson has said.”

“You have roughly four weeks, if he’s starting his regulators tomorrow.”

“Wade.”  Maybe it was Wade’s imagination, but there did seem to be some sympathy in Stark’s tone, somewhere.  “I know you made an effort. Hell, you’re the first Alpha I know to get birth control. Dr. Thompson assured me that Peter was in good hands, once she’d gotten to know you.  So what went wrong, and what do I need to be looking for?”

If Wade was the type that trusted Stark, he’d spill everything in that moment.  He did want somebody to know that he’d tried, that he had...fuck, that he had actually felt something for Peter.  Maybe the first real feelings he’d had since Vanessa. He wanted to tell somebody that he had fucked up in biting Peter, but he’d meant every moment that his teeth had sunk into that supple skin.

But he didn’t really trust Stark, so he didn’t say any of those things.

“You know teenage mood swings.  They like one thing, then they switch to something else.  Just keep those Alphas coming like a revolving door and Peter will eventually find one that sticks.”  Wade turned toward the door and started toward it, sending some broken glass skittering across the floor.

Tony spluttered.  “‘Alphas’ plural? Because I think you remember how we settled on you in the first place, buddy.  There isn’t anyone else. Certainly not enough people to satisfy your revolving door metaphor.”

Wade shrugged, not turning around.  He scooped up his duffel bag, which he’d dropped on his way to the couch when he came in.  “Have you tried anybody from that mansion school?” he called back over his shoulder. “There’s gotta be someone there who won’t kill him or burn laser vision holes through him.”

“Wade!” Tony shouted.  “Seriously -- what am I supposed to --”

“I gotta wash my hands of the kid, Stark,” Wade cut in, but his voice was so uncertain that even he didn’t believe it.  His scarred hand closed over the intricately designed doorknob and yanked the door open to the private hallway with the private elevator that he’d hacked.

[ _So that’s it, then?  We’re done with Peter for good?_ ]

{ _Don’t be an idiot.  There’s no way that kid is staying out of our dreams._ }

Wade had to try very hard not to murder the doorman on the way out.

  


~~~~~~~

 

____PETER

 

Peter bent double, humid air surging in and out of his lungs as he panted.  All around him, he could hear reverberating voices, laughter, slamming metal ringing in his ears.

The tile of the shower only made the echo pound into his head; he pressed his eyes shut as water streamed down from his hair into the drain.

It was Friday, two days after he’d run into Principal Morita in the bathroom on the fourth floor.  Now, he was in the basement of the school, in the locker room shower, trying not to let panic seep in.  

“Dude, it’s okay, nobody was paying attention.”  Peter knew that Ned was speaking softly, almost a whisper, but it was grating when added to the cacophony around him.  He could sense his friend standing just outside the shower stall. It was only mildly comforting.

Walking the fine line between his usual strength and reflexes, and his superpowered ones, was always a little difficult.  Of course it had to be in front of his whole physical education class that he slipped onto the wrong side of the line.

“Everybody was too distracted by the dodgeballs, I swear to God.”

Peter had been struggling to think about anything but Wade over the last couple days, although he was trying to get on his teachers’ good sides again by answering more questions in class and doing extra on the homework.  He’d finally relaxed when he got to gym class, thinking it was a brief reprieve from needing to be at the top of his game. Unfortunately, that meant that while he was absent-mindedly standing in the back of their full-class game of dodgeball, he was a sitting duck to Flash.  He’d sensed the ball flying directly for his chest of course; the mistake had been curving his spine back into an unnatural arch to dodge the projectile, and then easily straightening back up again a second later. It was only after Peter stood back up that he realized he’d just pulled a move straight out of _The Matrix_ and that there was no way mild, bookish Peter Parker should have been able to do something like that.  He was sure Flash had seen him, too.

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stem the burning in his eyes as he crouched down in the shower.  His heart was still pounding with panic.

“Dude, are you going to be okay?  Should I call someone?”

God, Ned’s voice was loud.  Peter opened his mouth and felt the humid shower air clog his throat.

“Give me a minute, Ned.  I’m fine.”

The movement he could sense on the other side of the shower curtain indicated hesitation, but after a few seconds, his friend turned away from the showers.  “The towel is on the hook, then.”

“Kay.  Thanks.”

He stayed crouched just above the shower floor for as long as he could without worrying about being late for his next class.  Then, when he’d managed to get his heartbeat down to an appropriate pace, he stood up, turned off the hard water, and grabbed the ratty white towel from the hook outside the shower.

By the time he was standing in front of his gym locker, pulling on his boxers, he was alone, and yet his own movements made enough sound against all the tile and metal that his mind still seemed to twitch with overstimulation.

He just wanted to be in bed with the covers pulled over him, in total darkness and quiet.

Except when he thought of being in his own bed, he thought of Wade being in it with him.

“You’ll forget him when the bonding hormones fade,” Peter murmured under his breath as he fumbled the buttons on his shirt.  “Eventually they’ll fade. Then you’ll be able to forget him.”

Suddenly, the door to the locker room banged open with a sound that ricocheted off the walls so violently that Peter involuntarily flinched.  His first instinct was to tell the culprit off for being so obnoxious. It was quickly overruled by the fact that the person who had just come in was clearly sobbing.

And it was a girl.

 _She must not realize she’s in the boys’ locker room._  Peter felt a nervous blush heat his ears and he hurriedly stuffed his sweater into his backpack and pulled on his shoes.  The crying persisted quietly, on the other side of several rows of lockers.

Part of him wanted to ask the girl what was wrong and help her.  The other part didn’t want to embarrass her by revealing that she’d gone into the wrong room.

He gently pressed his locker shut, wincing when the _click_ of the mechanism seemed to explode in his ears.  Now it was just ten feet to the door, and he could leave the girl to cry in peace….

“Peter, I know you’re in h-here.”

Holy shit.  He knew that voice.  As though he’d been hit with some kind of cliched freeze ray, Peter stood rooted to the spot.  Tentatively, he called back, “MJ?”

The sobbing had turned into sniffling.  “Yeah, you idiot. Get over here.”

With some difficulty, Peter willed his muscles to respond to his brain.  When MJ came into view, his heart dropped. She was sitting on one of the benches, her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands.  When he sat down next to her, she raised her head. The poofy hair that had escaped being pulled back into a ponytail was positioned to hide her red and swollen eyes, but it was doing a poor job.

“I ran into Ned in the hallway; he said you were in here.  I could have talked to him, but…” Peter was shit at comforting people, but he rested his hand on MJ’s left forearm, hoping that would help.  She closed her eyes at the touch, looking like she was about to burst into tears again.

He swallowed, not moving his hand.  “What happened?”

“I got a call from my dad just now.  We were fighting last night, and he said that I shouldn’t bother coming home today.”

Peter stared at her.  He’d met her parents on numerous occasions.  Joseph and Susan Jones had always seemed friendly enough.  They were the kind of parents that would say hello to you when you walked in the door, offer you something to drink, and then generally leave you alone to hang out.  He knew that their plans on prom night to take pictures had probably been thwarted by some kind of disagreement, but he’d partially chalked it up to MJ’s somewhat permanently dour mood.

“What does he mean you ‘shouldn’t bother coming home today’?  That’s bullshit.”

“I guess he figures I’m eighteen now, so I should be able to find a place to go.”

“In New York City?  What, does he want you out on the street?”

MJ shrugged.  “Maybe he doesn’t care at this point.”

Peter gaped at his friend.  “What about your mom?”

“I don’t know, Peter.  I think she’s just going along with what Dad is saying.”  Suddenly, she buried her face in her hands again, the new position pushing Peter’s hand off her forearm.  Instead, he swung one leg over the bench so he was straddling it, wrapped both arms around MJ, and pulled her close.

Her shoulders began shaking against his chest.

It was mind-boggling to Peter how the Joneses could just decide that they didn’t want MJ to stay with them anymore.  Even if it was a temporary thing -- something Joseph said in anger -- it was worse, in Peter’s mind, than anything that had happened to him.  His parents were _dead_ , but they hadn’t rejected him.  They’d been taken away from him, before they wanted to go.  The same had happened with Uncle Ben. And no matter what kind of trouble Peter seemed to get into, Aunt May was still there, with open arms, every day.  

Here was MJ, a straight-A student, quiet and brilliant, sardonic, witty, compassionate, concerned, and they felt entitled to push her away and hurt her.

“Your parents don’t fucking know how lucky they are,” he murmured into MJ’s hair, just above her ear.

As though all of the strength had gone out of her, all of MJ’s weight was suddenly against Peter’s chest.  He could have easily supported her, probably supported ten of her, but instead he gently lowered both of them back onto the bench.  His spine was flat against the wood, and MJ was resting on top of him, her head on his rib cage, her hip nestled between his legs. He reached up to gently drag his fingers through her thick hair.

She lifted herself off him just enough to resituate her arms so that they were carefully hugging his sides.

Somewhere in the distance, the bell was ringing to start the next class, but Peter forced himself to not care.  If there was anything in the world more important than school, or being Spider-Man, or having Principal Morita angry with him, it was this.

When MJ finally straightened up ten minutes later, he gave her a final squeeze, slung her backpack over his shoulder on top of his, and walked her to her next class.  A few minutes later, he crept into shop room and took his place next to Ned, who gave him a concerned look while Peter explained the situation. It was only fifteen minutes later that the shop teacher looked up from his crossword puzzle, frowned at his attendance sheet, and marked Peter “present.”

  


~~~~~~

 

Peter, Ned, and MJ caught the subway home from Midtown Tech after school and went straight to Peter’s apartment.  It was a Friday, and while Peter had been spending his Fridays being busy lately, he was intent on simply spending time with his friends now.  The Iron Spider suit was still sitting heavily at the bottom of his backpack, just in case of emergency, but his backpack was immediately flung onto the floor of his room when they burst in, and lay forgotten there.  

Neither Peter nor Ned brought up the fact that MJ couldn’t go home.  They treated it like just another Friday night. Aunt May ordered three pizzas (“Because Peter can probably eat five himself, but I don’t have that kind of money,” she’d said) and they’d watched the first _Harry Potter_ movie (“Drink a shot of water every time somebody says, ‘Harry,’ ‘Snape,’ or ‘You-Know-Who,” Ned had instructed).  By the time the two hour, thirty-nine minute film had finished, MJ was doing a scarily accurate British accent and Peter was practically peeing himself laughing.  

It was only when eleven o’clock rolled around and Ned had to go home that they addressed the awkwardness.

Aunt May rolled out a sleeping mat on the floor in Peter’s room and layered blankets on top of it, and Peter gave MJ a T-shirt and some basketball shorts to sleep in.  Somehow they found another toothbrush and Peter sat on his bed, waiting for MJ to finish in the bathroom, listening to her brush her teeth through the walls as keenly as though she were next to him.

When they went to turn off the lights, Aunt May kissed them both on the forehead.  Then the door closed, and suddenly they were lying in the darkness, the only light filtering in the window from the street.

After a minute, MJ spoke, so quietly that Peter wouldn’t have heard her if he didn’t have super senses.

“So you sneak out that window at night to go save the city and stuff.”  It wasn’t a question.

Peter shifted in his bed.  “Well, I used to. But now May knows, so it’s not so much sneaking out as just avoiding walking through my apartment building in my weird suit.”

MJ laughed softly.  “The suit’s not that weird.”

“Uh, yeah it is.”

“Okay, it is.”

Everything was quiet for a moment, Peter’s senses only picking up on the noises from the street and MJ’s breathing.  Then, he felt her get up from her nest of blankets on the floor. She came toward his bed in the dark.

“Where are you?” she whispered.  “I can’t see.”

For some reason, Peter’s heart was beating in his throat.  He could half-see, half-sense MJ, standing a few feet from his bed.  The springs squeaked as he pushed himself up onto his elbow and held out his hand in the dark.  “Take another step forward.”

She did.

“One more.”

MJ walked into his outstretched fingers, the soft cotton of the T-shirt the only barrier between his hand and her ribcage.

“Come here,” he murmured.  Her hand found his and he gently led her to the edge of the mattress, making sure she didn’t hit her head on the metal frame of the top bunk as she carefully sat down.  He released her hand to pull the blankets and sheets out of the way so she could recline next to him. When she seemed settled in, he brought the blankets back over the both of them and lied down again.

He could hear her heart beating fast.

“How do you do it?” she murmured into the darkness.  “How do you do it all and stay strong?”

“Do all what?”

“Everything.  How do you be Spider-Man, and get a scholarship to ESU, and be an Omega, and still be everything to everybody?  How are you still a hero?”

Peter swallowed.  His left side felt oddly cold compared to the right, which was just a couple inches from MJ’s warm skin.  “Because I want to be. I have to be.”

MJ’s faced turned in the dark, and now he could feel her breath ghosting toward him.  “You do it for Ben, don’t you?”

Peter could have said he was a hero for the sake of responsibility, but he’d learned all that from Ben, anyway.  He didn’t answer.

MJ took his non-response as affirmative.  “God, you’ve been through so much and still you’re the strongest person I know.  And here I am. My parents are alive, I don’t have a double-life, I’m not an Omega or an Alpha.  All I have to do is worry about school, and yet I still can’t keep anything under control.” She was speaking so softly, now.  “And you have to save me, when you have a whole city to save.”

Peter closed his eyes.  He and MJ had been friends for a few years, but it seemed like forever.  She’d been constant, always in the background, for years before that. Every time she’d called him a loser, or flipped him the bird, it had felt different from when Flash or anyone else did it.  Because in her eyes, he could see that she was still on his side, just like him in a lot of ways. Yet, she’d never let herself succumb to all the flaws that Peter had. While Peter had spent a considerable amount of time only thinking about his potential superhero career, MJ had been there to help the decathlon team win at nationals.  When Peter was like a seismograph reading, always hitting highs and lows and being mercurial and succumbing to the side effects of the heat suppressants, MJ was like the faintly printed lines underneath, always softly steady and helping him see when he was being just a little too dramatic.

“You don’t need anyone to save you, MJ,” he said honestly.

In the way that her heartbeat changed, Peter could tell that she understood him, even if she didn’t acknowledge it verbally.

Instead, she managed, “I’m just glad I’m a Beta.  I can’t imagine being an Alpha or Omega. I was...kind of sad for you, when you told us.”

Peter laughed dryly.  “Yeah, I was sad for me, too.  It sucks.”

“Does it all suck?” she said suddenly.  “Isn’t part of it...you know, good? Doesn’t it feel...good?”

Peter exhaled slowly.  He was very aware, at the moment, that MJ was next to him in bed, where Wade had been.  “Yeah, parts I suppose. But it isn’t great that it’s forced. And the negatives definitely outweigh the positives.”

“Negatives?”

“Yeah.  It can hurt, sometimes,” Peter muttered into the space in front of him.  His hand went to his abdomen subconsciously. “And I feel this empty feeling.  It’s like part loneliness, part physical agony.”

“And it helps when an Alpha is around?”

Peter’s hand left his abdomen and reached up to rub his eyes.  “Maybe for some people, but my heats are bad. Like, really bad.  I literally need him...um... _in_ me.”   _God, stop talking Peter, this is disgusting._

MJ’s breathing had gone shallow.  “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you have Deadpool, then.”

_Fuck.  You shouldn’t have said anything._

“Actually, Deadpool and I aren’t going to see each other anymore.  I'm getting Mr. Stark to look for a replacement Alpha for my next heat.”

“...Why?”  MJ’s tone was impossible to place.

Was he really about to admit to MJ that he had bonded with Wade?  For a moment, he thought of any other excuse. Maybe he could make himself sound horrible and say that Wade’s skin bothered him.  Or, he could say that he and Wade just weren’t sexually compatible. That sounded legitimate, right?

But MJ was right next to him, and he could feel her looking at him in the dark.  She’d been completely open and honest with him today. He could do the same.

“You know how you were worried that we’d...that we’d bonded?  Because he bit me a few times? Well, I realized that I bit him, too.  So we’re bonded, and I just…” A slow pressure was gathering in Peter’s throat, threatening tears.   _Keep it together._

MJ breathed in and out measuredly.  “If you’re bonded, why wouldn’t you stay with him?”

As if part of Peter hadn’t been asking himself that question already.

“Because I couldn’t know if it’s real.”  He didn’t say what ‘it’ was, but MJ knew anyway.

“Do you want it to be?”

Peter swallowed, his saliva struggling to make it past the lump in his throat.  “I think so.”

“But now it feels like it might not be.”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything or even moved.  Then, with a sort of inhale of decision, MJ shifted towards him, facing him on her side.  She laid her arm over his chest and entwined one of her legs between his.

Peter could feel every point of contact between them, and the way her fingers drew gentle lines into the skin of his arm made his head almost dizzy.  He needed touch like this.

“I know I’m a Beta and I can’t understand all this,” MJ breathed, and her voice was warm against his neck.  “But I know that when we start discounting our feelings as not being real, that’s when we start to go crazy.”

One of the hot tears that had been stinging in his eye finally gathered enough weight to slide down into his hair.  Instead of reaching up to wipe it away, he simply settled his hand on MJ’s arm, right where it crossed his heart. Another tear followed the first.

When he woke up the next morning, it was to sunlight shyly peeking in through the shades, and MJ curled up like a child, her nose just inches from his shoulder.  Peter closed his eyes and made the choice to really sleep in for once, next to his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short Summary:
> 
> Wade breaks into Tony Stark's penthouse to tell him that Peter needs a new Alpha, and finds out about the fire at Dr. Thompson's building while he's there. Neither Tony nor Wade leave the conversation in a good mood. (Very angsty.)
> 
> Peter is upset in the boys' locker room after being careless with his powers in gym class. He then finds out that MJ's parents have kicked her out and she and Ned spend the evening at Peter's apartment, after which MJ stays the night and she and Peter have a conversation about him being brave and about how Peter has left Wade. (Pretty fluffy.)


	19. Overwhelmed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I really wanted to publish this now, even though I've barely read it through. That means I might read it through later, hate it, and have to edit some things. But here it is, in all of its rough glory, for your reading pleasure.
> 
> I'll say this to start: there is a bit more Peter/MJ here than I anticipated, but it felt right and so I decided to go with it. If you hate it, I get it. But I wanted to put it in because I think it makes sense. HOWEVER, IF YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THE RETURN OF PETER/WADE...YOU GUYS. WE ARE SO CLOSE. YOU HAVE BEEN SO PATIENT.
> 
> Please leave comments! (I will add a short summary to the end in case you're still not certain about reading.)

____PETER

 

When Peter woke up again on Saturday, MJ was no longer in bed with him.  Instead, she was sitting out at the table, bouncing her knee distractedly while Aunt May tried not to burn pancakes.  Judging by the cell phone sitting on the tabletop, Peter could tell MJ had been expecting her parents to realize their stupidity during the night and text or call by morning to ask her to come home.  Judging by the way that MJ didn’t even look at Peter as he walked in the room, that hadn’t happened.

Aunt May began setting the table for breakfast, ducking in and out of the kitchen with silverware, warm syrup, and orange juice.  “So I figured today,” she started, her voice undulating in volume as she placed napkins and retreated back to the kitchen, “would be a no-homework day.  Just fun.”

Peter leaned on the back of a chair and smiled.  “And why is that?”

May rolled her eyes at him as she put a glass at the place setting in front of MJ.  “Because. You guys are barely eighteen and you work like you’re forty-five. You need a break.”

Whatever May said, Peter could tell that she was really suggesting a fun day because MJ looked miserable.  “What do you have in mind?”

His aunt copied his body language and leaned on the back of her own chair.  “Well, I was thinking a movie, some ice cream, and maybe I’ll even take you out to dinner.  As long as you guys don’t have expensive taste. I’m not an endless supply of cash.”

“Damn, I wanted to go to DANIEL,” Peter joked.

May bristled and pushed her oversized glasses up her nose.  “Isn’t that the place that is literally listed as ‘jacket-required’ online?”

“Peter, you’d barely get one toe in a place like that before they kicked you out and sent you to Weenie Hut Junior,” MJ said suddenly.  She wasn’t looking at him, but Peter took the joke as a sign that she would at least be up for some outing. He grinned and pulled out his chair.

“Solid reference.  You underestimate how far the Spider-Man suit gets you, though.  I could probably swing in and they’d have a table just for me.”

Both May and MJ scoffed simultaneously, “In your dreams.”

There was a lot more estrogen in the room than Peter was used to, but he didn’t mind.

What he  _ did _ mind was the shrill screaming of the smoke detector, which went off a second later.

“God, the pancakes,” May groaned, and immediately grabbed a towel to wave the smoke out of the air.

Peter pressed his palms against his ears to block out the sound from killing his heightened senses and looked up at MJ.  She caught his glance for a second and smiled a little. Then, her smile faded and she unlocked her phone, checking her text messages for what was likely not the first time that morning.

“Peter, don’t forget to take your pill!” May called from the kitchen.

Well, having fun was going to be an uphill battle, but Peter was ready to fight it.

  
  


~~~~~

 

By the time they fell into bed that night, it had been a packed day.  They’d done all the things May had suggested and then some. The highlights included sneaking plastic baggies of Gobstoppers and Nerds into the movie theater via Peter’s jeans pockets; he had to practically waddle in just so he wouldn’t sound like walking maracas.  They also got ice cream in the park and then did the tourist thing of catching the Staten Island Ferry. When somebody from out of state mentioned how they’d seen the ferry split in half once on the news, Peter, MJ, and May all shared knowing glances.

Not everything was without its hitches, though.  During the movie, Peter’s phone had started buzzing incessantly with text messages; when he checked it after, he’d missed six texts from Tony Stark himself (despite the number of messages, there was a lot of extra information and the takeaway was that Peter should call the billionaire at some point during the weekend).  Resolving to call on Sunday, Peter had tried to get back to enjoying the day with MJ and May. Until, that is, he’d seen a tall man in a gray hoodie and jeans that looked remarkably like Wade from behind. He’d spent far too long staring, his mouth going painfully dry, when the man finally turned around and a glimpse of dark, smooth skin told Peter that the man certainly wasn’t Wade.

Of course, the worst thing that happened all day was that MJ’s parents still hadn’t called.

It wasn’t surprising that, the second May turned off the lights and closed the door, MJ was back in Peter’s bed.  This time, she didn’t say anything -- just curled up, facing away from him, and cried. Peter held her from behind, trying to be as good of a big spoon as possible, despite the fact that he was actually slightly shorter than her.  To make up for whatever his stature lacked, he carefully combed his fingers through her wild hair and tried to remember funny stories about him and Ned into her ear.

He’d just reminded her of how he and Ned had planned to have Spider-Man crash Liz’s party back in sophomore year when MJ suddenly interrupted him.  “Liz’s dad was a maniac and he still never kicked his own daughter out.”

Peter tucked a strand of MJ’s thick hair behind her ear and then rested his hand on her shoulder.  “They’ll realize they’re being absolute idiots and beg you to come back. I’m serious. Give it one more day.”

“I think you’re giving them more credit than they deserve.”  God, MJ’s voice sounded small. Peter closed his eyes, trying to think of what to say.

“They’ll come to their senses.  There have been times May has been absolutely livid with me and yet here I am, in my own room, in my own bed.”

MJ sighed through her nose.  “Speaking of that, do you think May would mind if she found out I was in your bed, too?”

“Nah.  She would have put you out on the couch if she was really strict.  Besides, she knows we’re not doing anything.”

“Well, we could be.  Doing something, I mean.”

She’d said it casually, almost as though she hoped he’d brush it off, but Peter could feel MJ’s heart rate slowly accelerating in her neck.  Under his fingertips, he could feel goosebumps on her soft skin.

Wait.

Holy shit.

Holy shit, MJ wanted him.

Years of hints suddenly came crashing into his mind.  He couldn’t be sure how long exactly MJ might have been crushing on him, but now that he was this close to her, holding her, it seemed ridiculous that he hadn’t realized it before.  It seemed even more incredible that she’d never said anything -- how long had she just calmly, patiently been his friend? How long had she kept it underneath everything, figuring that things would never work out between them because he was an Omega?

MJ was stiff in front of him, waiting for him to say something in response.  Peter gently ran his thumb over the goosebumps on her shoulder, suddenly very aware of every place that their bodies were touching.  Normally he was able to filter out certain sensory input, just to keep his sanity, but every sensation his brain had managed to file away just a minute ago came flooding back into his nerves.  He dragged his thumb over her skin just to focus on something. To focus on the way the bumps provided resistance to the ridges of his fingerprint, to feel the small hairs bend under his touch.

“I um...I didn’t mean it that way.  Forget I said anything,” MJ finally added when Peter failed to formulate words in response.

His senses were in overdrive.  Fuck, MJ’s heartbeat was so loud he could feel it throbbing in his own body.

Maybe MJ could hear that his breathing had changed or could tell he was worrying the spot on her shoulder a little too tensely.  “Don’t panic,” she whispered bemusedly. “Doesn’t change anything.”

Peter finally managed to make his jaw work.  “Sorry, just, you saying that and I -- my powers -- I just have to filter out some of the sensory input.  Bit overwhelming,” he managed. 

MJ’s pulse didn’t slow down.  “Oh.”

For a long moment, they both stayed still, breaths a little faster than normal, Peter pressing his thumb back and forth over MJ’s skin as though the action were a tether to reality.  His mental power was split between trying to manage what he felt, and trying not to think about Wade. The sudden intimacy of the moment pulled his mind back to the hotel room in Manhattan, when Wade pulled a washcloth over his skin, when Wade lowered Peter’s exhausted body into a swirling bath, when Wade whispered in Peter’s ear that they could have a kid together one day….

MJ clapped her hand down on top of Peter’s, stilling his thumb.  “Okay, you...you can’t do that,” she muttered, and she was breathless.

Peter’s mind broke away from Wade, and he realized that he felt hot.  MJ was trembling a little against him.

And Christ, he was hard.

“Shit, sorry,” he hissed, and pulled his hips back, breaking the contact between the front of his body and MJ.

“Don’t be sorry.  You’re a dude, it happens.”

Peter closed his eyes.  She was understanding, understated, stable -- reassuring  _ him _ even though  _ she’d _ just essentially confessed her feelings.  The same old MJ. He wanted to tell her how much he appreciated everything, how much he was so thankful to have her as a friend, to have her in his life.  If only his brain could stop short-circuiting long enough to come up with an eloquent way to say it. It was as though his mental faculties had dispersed into his body instead.  

“Yeah, it does,” he breathed, and his lips were so close to her neck that it only took him a half-inch to press them to her skin.

She went stock-still in his arms.

Then he gave her shoulder a squeeze and pulled away, shifting his body back so that they weren’t so much cuddling now as just lying in the same bed together.  He could sense MJ’s breathing, heartbeat, and trembling just six inches away, but now that they weren’t in direct contact, he could start to process the sensory input.  After a few minutes, he’d managed to dial it back away from an overwhelming eleven.

Whether MJ had recovered yet, he wasn’t sure.

All the same, she whispered, still facing away from him, “You okay?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, I’m...I managed to calm things down.”

There was a small exhaling sound, almost like soft laughter.  “Doesn’t take much, does it?”

“My brain just needed a moment to process...everything.”

They stayed in silence for another minute, and MJ’s heartbeat sounded more on-par with a normal pace.  As the heat left his body, Peter felt cool guilt settle into his chest.

Then, MJ turned a little, so she was looking over her shoulder at him, over the pink patch of skin that he’d rubbed raw with his thumb.  “Don’t tell Ned.”

“I won’t.”

Whether MJ was referring to the tense moment they’d just shared or the fact that she had feelings for him, Peter couldn’t be sure.

All the same, this was one more secret he couldn’t imagine giving away.

  
  


~~~~~

 

Now that graduation was only about a month away, school was gradually turning into even more of a nightmare.

It seemed like every class suddenly got more high-stakes overnight.  He was still clinging to his high GPA, but it felt now more than ever like he was holding on by one spider-gripping finger, at best.  Teachers were passing out more and more homework, gearing up for final projects, and pre-final projects, and it seemed like everybody was collectively losing their minds.

He knew that there would have been no way that he could have navigated everything if MJ’s parents hadn’t called on Sunday morning after she’d stayed with Peter for two nights.  They’d admitted their mistake, just like Peter had said they would. It sounded like MJ’s mom had initiated the call, though, and part of Peter doubted that MJ and her dad would ever have a good relationship again.  All the same, MJ’s mom had signed the three of them up for family counseling. Peter and Ned checked in with MJ every day; she always said things were getting better.

Nothing was said about what had happened between Peter and MJ in Peter’s room.  With everything that was going on in school, it almost seemed like there was no time to discuss anything other than what absolutely needed to be discussed.  For the three of them, locker-side banter had turned into hurried mentions of projects and tasks that needed to get done. Even lunch wasn’t safe. Ned had taken to studying Spanish flashcards between mouthfuls of mashed potatoes, MJ read and reread the books for her advanced English class, and Peter split his time between doing his actual chemistry and physics homework and trying to develop a new web fluid.  He knew it was a bad time to think about improving his second life (when his first life was threatening to fall apart at the seams), but poring over his notes on web fluid while he practically inhaled his vegetables actually calmed him down a little. It was better than cramming for the next test or assignment.

He felt even worse for Ned and MJ because, on top of school, they were now worrying about their moves to college.  Peter counted himself lucky on several occasions that he had so easily figured out his college situation, and that ESU had been sending him ample amounts of mail detailing everything from orientation to how to live in New York City, as if he hadn’t been doing it his whole life.  It was even more of a blessing that he was going to be able to stay in Queens with Aunt May; just one less thing to worry about. However, it was more than a little disappointing that Ned was going to be moving more than two hours away to go to the University of Pennsylvania. MJ was going the opposite direction because she’d gotten into Brown.  “We’ll just have to meet in the middle and bug the crap out of Peter,” they had been saying for the last few months, but somehow Peter felt like New York was going to be a bigger, emptier city without them.

Especially since things were falling apart with the other, pressing part of his life.

After MJ had left his apartment on Sunday to go back and reconcile with her parents, Peter had figured he’d better call Mr. Stark back.  

He didn’t quite expect the earful that he got.

“I don’t know if you think there are discreet, ultra-energetic Alphas on every other block in New York, Peter, but you are setting me up with a damn near-impossible task, here.”

“I know, I know.  I just really need someone else.”

Mr. Stark’s voice wasn’t angry, but it was teetering somewhere between annoyed and confused.  “Can I ask why it didn’t work out? Because besides the skin thing, I thought Wade was pretty much the best guy for the job.”

Peter swallowed hard.  “Yeah, I know.”

“So what was the issue?  Was it really his skin?”

“Yeah,” Peter said quickly.  “Yeah, it was just the skin.”  His heart was hammering in his chest as he said it.

There was silence for a full ten seconds, long enough for Peter to think maybe the line had cut out.  Then, Mr. Stark responded.

“I kind of thought you were better than that.”

“Sorry.”  Peter couldn’t bring his voice higher than a murmur.

Mr. Stark sighed on the other end of the phone.  “Well, ‘sorry’ doesn’t really cut it, because ‘sorry’ isn’t going to solve the fact that now I have to find someone else.  How much time do I have?”

“I started my regulators on Thursday, so my next...my next heat won’t be for almost a month.”

“Thank God.”  The line crackled, like Mr. Stark was shifting to write something down.  “Speaking of your regulators, kid. I know you told me you grabbed them from Dr. Thompson’s office.  Dr. Thompson wasn’t too thrilled.”

Peter frowned.  “Why? I know the ones I took were mine.”

“Well, she seemed to be concerned that they might have been tampered with.  She said she’d been hoping to check everything over after the vandals left.”

“I checked them.  They looked untouched.”

The line crackled again as Mr. Stark sighed once more.  “Look, all I know is that she said some stuff did go missing from the cabinet.  So she was worried about the other stuff, like the regulators. I’m just telling you what she told me.”

“I think everything is fine, Mr. Stark.  It’s been four days and I’m good.”

Peter had never felt like he wanted to quickly end a phone call with Tony Stark before, but he was itching to finish the conversation.

“Okay, kid.  I’ll text you when I’ve got someone else.  And you’re going to have to sign another form saying you’re cool with the new guy.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

Mr. Stark had hung up then, leaving Peter to wait for any news about who his new Alpha was going to be.  The old familiar feeling of being a burden on Tony Stark had started to creep in again.

Since then, Peter had been distantly aware that the issue had still not been resolved, since Tony still hadn’t gotten back to him.  But he couldn’t afford it that much mental space when his academic life seemed to be imploding. He hadn’t even had the chance to go out on patrol at all recently; he’d started only donning the Iron Spider suit when it seemed like there was an emergency going on.  Part of him wished his superpowers had nothing to do with spiders and more to do with controlling time. Then he could maybe catch his breath.

  
  


~~~~~

  
  


Two Fridays after the break-in at Dr. Thompson’s office, Peter found himself awake at 3:00 in the morning.  He had promised himself that he would stay off the streets and just finish his massive project for history class and write the big presentation speech leisurely; that had worked out for about five minutes, until six squad cars had peeled down the street adjacent to his apartment building.  

If only it had been a bank robbery and not a hold-up at a grocery store.  Not only were there dozens of patrons, including children, that he had to try to keep safe, but the aisles were tricky to maneuver and provided plenty of strange projectiles for the thieves to hurl his way.  They were harmless, of course, and he dodged all of them (he couldn’t help but crack a joke when someone threw a can of sauerkraut his way), but it was still annoying. And in the end, he only managed to catch three of the people involved in the oddly-elaborate heist.  Why a whole team of criminals would choose to rob a chain grocery store in Queens at 8:30 p.m. on a Thursday, he had no idea. All he knew was that by the time he slid his window open and crept inside his room, it was already past 11.

Peter rubbed his dry eyes as he stared at the glowing computer screen.  He still had to write a conclusion for his speech and then practice it. Speaking in front of a room of people was not exactly his strong suit.  His  _ strong _ suit was folded up into its chest-plate on his bed, he thought amusedly.  _  Oh God my jokes are horrible at this time of the morning _ .

By the time Peter finally crawled into bed, it was nearly 4 a.m.  He had about two hours of sleep in front of him, and then he had to face the day.  It was not going to be fun.

~~~

 

“You look awful, dude.”

Peter lifted his cheek off his forearms just enough so he could shoot Ned a death stare.  He had been trying to catch a micro-nap before the bell rang to signal third period politics; he should have known better as soon as Ned sat down.

“Well, yeah, did you hear about that grocery store?”

“Were you there?” Ned hissed, looking around to make sure no one else was paying attention.

“No shit.”

His friend nodded appreciatively.  “Damn, that’s so cool. Did you catch any bad guys?”

“Just three.”

“Woah.  How many were there?”

“Like way too many for a stupid grocery store robbery.”  Peter turned away from Ned and rested his other cheek on his arms.  “What is this, Twenty Questions? I’m trying to close my eyes for a second.”

Ned, of course, kept talking.  Sometimes Peter wondered how any of his secrets were still secrets when Ned could barely keep his mouth shut for one minute.  “Did you get your history speech done?”

“Yes,” Peter hissed.  “Now let me just close my eyes -- ”

“Head off the desk, Peter!” Mr. Meyer shouted good-naturedly from the front of the room.  Peter jerked his face off his arms and resisted the urge to kill anybody. “As much as I’d love to just lecture to a room of sleeping teenagers, I do have a strange desire for you all to pass.  Even if it’s just so I don’t need to see any of you get held back and show up next year.”

As Mr. Meyer turned to the front of the room and began scrawling current events out, Peter sat up and rubbed his eyes.  His speech was swimming in the back of his mind, along with fifty other things. On so little sleep, he felt way more keyed up than usual, if that was even possible.  And with so much swirling around in his brain, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d forgotten something.

“You don’t have cramps do you?” Ned whispered, just barely audible.  “Didn’t you start your Phase 2 pill today?”

The words sounded strange in Peter’s head for a second.  “What?”

“You know, your Phase 2 pill?  That you take for the two weeks before…”

“Oh shit,” Peter hissed.  His heart dropped into his stomach.  Of course he’d forgotten his heat regulator.  Today was when he was supposed to take the first of the pills that helped him ease into his heats instead of dropping on him like a bomb.

Ned reached down and grabbed his water bottle with the chewed-up drinking spout.  “I’ve got water if you’ve got it.”

“Yeah, yeah, one second…”

Peter fumbled through his backpack, pushing crumpled paper and notebooks to the side.  The box was at the very bottom with the gum wrappers. As discreetly as possible, Peter cracked open the tin and pushed out one of the yellow-tinted pills that indicated Phase 2.  He shoved it into his mouth and took a few hefty gulps of water to wash it down.

Mr. Meyer was starting the class now, but Peter handed the water back to his best friend, mouthing his appreciation.

“I got you.”

Third period dragged by, and fourth and fifth periods were just as bad.  Instead of listening during Mr. Ramirez’s Spanish class (he’d been taking Spanish since sophomore year and while Ned was still putting in an effort, Peter had accepted that he’d probably never be good at it), he studied his speech in his lap.  It probably looked weird that he was staring at his crotch for the whole class, but Mr. Ramirez didn’t seem to notice.

When he and Ned went to their shared locker before sixth period, MJ was standing there.

“You ready for your speech, MJ?” Ned asked as he reached over Peter’s head for a book from the top shelf.  Peter got a whiff of body odor and turned to look at MJ rather than stand so close to Ned’s armpit.

“I’m hoping that Mr. Waititi won’t be paying too much attention.  He’s got a really bad head cold.” Peter and Ned exchanged glances, but MJ scoffed.  “I didn’t poison him or anything. I’m just very observant.”

“Well, wish me luck, because he  _ might _ notice if I fall asleep standing up in front of the class.” Peter asked, bending down to deposit his math textbook in the bowels of their locker now that Ned had moved away.  When Peter stood, a sharp twinge of pain went through his gut. It was such a surprise that he couldn’t help but react, bending double for a moment.

MJ folded her arms.  “You okay?”

The feeling seemed to have passed as quickly as it started.  Peter straightened up, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “Uh, yeah.  It’s um…”

“Peter took his Phase 2 pill in Poli-Sci class.  He’s getting cramps,” Ned said matter-of-factly. The look that Peter shot him was of as much contempt as he could muster.

“Say it louder so the whole school knows, Ned!”

His friend shrugged.  “Sorry.”

“Look,” Peter said, shifting his backpack onto his shoulders, “Let’s just get to class so I can get this speech over with.  You two have to promise to clap like I’m as good an orator as Barack Obama, and I’ll return the favor.”

The worst thing about sixth period was that, although he shared it with Ned and MJ, he didn’t sit near either of them.  Instead, he sat diagonally back from Flash, who grinned in his seat as Peter walked in.

“Ready to crash and burn, Penis Parker?”

Flash stuck his foot out into the aisle as Peter was making his way to his seat, the prickling in his neck told him to plant his hand on the desk and leap over Flash’s foot, directly into his chair.  

“What’s up with you lately, Parker?  You on steroids or something?” Flash’s voice was teasing, but Peter could hear the curiosity in it.  Fuck, that was the second time in as many weeks that Peter had accidentally been obvious about his powers.  What was wrong with him?

It was lucky that Mr. Waititi’s entrance saved him from answering; the teacher went straight to the board and began to write down the presentation order, which immediately shut the whole class up with anticipation.  Peter began curling the edges of his speech in his lap.

Then, just as Mr. Waititi began to write the “P” that was inevitably going to be his name, Peter felt a jolt in his abdomen that sent him buckling forward in his seat.  His hand grabbed the edge of the desk so hard that the metal joint groaned.

The blonde girl who sat next to him looked over, but Peter didn’t meet her -- or anyone’s -- eyes.  He was staring at the floor hard, trying not to be sick. As suddenly as the first lance of true pain went through him, another hit.  He braced his arm against his stomach and swallowed hard. If these were cramps, they were ungodly, nothing the like the ones from the month before.

Then, like a smoldering fire growing in his body, the pain started to build.

And under his hand, Peter felt the sickening sensation of movement.

This wasn’t his Phase 2 regulator bringing him up to the brink of heat slowly over the course of a few days.

This was him going into heat.  Now. In the middle of class.

“Fuck,” Peter breathed, melting down onto the top of the desk as he tried to focus on something other than the pain.  The girl next to him was now staring at him, but he closed his eyes and pressed his face into the arm that wasn’t braced on his stomach.  The sensation of his organs shifting inside him was quickly becoming unbearable; his tingling spider-sense shot down the back of his neck, maybe his powers’ cry for help as Omega hormones flooded his body and overwhelmed him.

“Hey, Parker, you okay?”  God, now  _ Flash _ was checking on him, of all people.  Peter looked up to tell him off, or maybe to ask the teacher if he could leave, or maybe to yell in pain.  The instant his head left the desk though, he knew he was in trouble.

Alpha pheromones flooded his nose.

Through the pain, he could feel his body’s reaction to a classroom with multiple Alphas present.  His mouth felt full of saliva; heat started pooling in his groin. It was like a wave of dizziness had swum over him; Peter dropped his head back and fought the moan that was sitting in his throat.

“Mr. Parker, what are you doing?” Mr. Waititi’s voice came from the front of the room.  Goddamnit, now the whole class was probably staring at him, and….

Flash suddenly spoke again.  “Holy...holy shit.”

Peter pulled his focus onto his bully; Flash was sitting sideways in his seat, staring at Peter.  His pupils were wide. A muscle in Flash’s jaw worked as he opened his mouth again and managed, “You’re an Omega, Parker?”

Flash’s voice sounded wrecked, and the way Peter could smell the other man’s pheromones made him feel nearly weak.  He needed to stand up, to get away, get out of  _ here _ , but his body was still in agony and the heat between his legs was starting to fill his dick and  _ oh God, how did this happen… _ .

Suddenly there was a hand under each of Peter’s armpits; he was pulled out of his desk and to his feet.  “Come on, dude, let’s go,” Ned was saying urgently. He slung one of Peter’s arms over his shoulder and pushed the two of them down the aisle between the desks.  Peter’s right hip jammed painfully into each desk as they passed each and every person who was watching him come undone.

“Are you ill, Parker?” Mr. Waititi was saying, his voice confused.

“He’s going into heat, you idiot,” somebody said from near the back of the room.  Whether that was convincing enough for the teacher, Peter didn’t know; all he knew was that a moment later, he and Ned were out in the hallway, cooler air on Peter’s face.

A moment later, MJ burst out of the classroom.

“Peter -- ” she started, but Ned interrupted, quietly freaking out as he supported most of Peter’s weight.

“Holy fucking shit, Peter, why are you going into heat?!”

Peter pressed his hand against his stomach.  His organs had mostly stopped moving now, and the pain was passing, which meant he could probably expect the crushing emptiness and slick any moment now.  “Dude, I don’t know, I took my Phase 2 regulator, but maybe I took it too late? I was only behind by like four hours.”

MJ had unzipped her backpack and was digging around for something.  She glanced up at him. “Are you doing okay? Are you in pain?”

Peter shook his head, his limbs feeling like lead and jelly at the same time.  “No, the pain is gone, but it’s about to…” He closed his eyes and pressed his hand harder against his stomach.  Fuck, the emptiness was creeping in. “...I’m about to need to be anywhere but here.”

MJ rezipped her backpack, holding something in her hand.  “Here, Ned, give him to me. You go tell Principal Morita what happened.”

“No!” Peter choked, shaking his head harder.  “No, Morita can’t know -- ”

Ned started peeling Peter away from him and suddenly Peter was slung over MJ’s shoulder, which was significantly bonier.  “Dude, the whole school is going to know. You just went into heat in class!”

“Come on, let’s get you outside,” MJ managed.  She wasn’t quite as strong as Ned, and Peter had every intention of taking more of his own weight, but just as they took a step toward the front door, the movement made Peter aware of just how achingly hard he already was, and suddenly there was the sinking feeling of slick sliding down the back of his leg.  His legs buckled a little, and MJ almost dragged him past the security guard, who looked confounded but didn’t say anything.

MJ pulled him through the front door, down the front steps, and out toward the side of the building, where they could be somewhat hidden from windows and the street.  Peter’s feet hardly seemed to work as he felt the mind-numbing need taking over his limbs. “Fuck,” he groaned as they made it past the corner of the building and MJ leaned him up against the wall.

“You okay still?” MJ panted as she stepped away.

Peter bit his lip.  “Where’s my backpack?”

“Ned’s got it.”

“Give me yours.”  He reached out his hand and MJ slipped her bag off her shoulders and handed it to him, looking concerned.  He pressed it up against the front of his jeans to hide his obvious erection.

MJ looked flushed.  “Peter, don’t worry about that, okay?  I’m not judging you.” She looked down at the object in her hand, which turned out to be her phone.  “But we have to call Deadpool. He’s got to come pick you up.”

Fucking hell.  Peter pressed the backpack against him harder, the pressure almost too much and too good at the same time.  “We can’t. I can’t...Mr. Stark was looking for someone else.”

“Yeah, but did he get anyone else?”

“I don’t know.  He didn’t have a lot of time….”

“Then I hate to tell you, Peter, but this is it.”

“You don’t have his number.”

MJ rolled her eyes.  “No, I don’t. I’M calling Aunt May.  But YOU have his number.” Then, like she wasn’t just inches from Peter’s erection, she reached around her backpack and into Peter’s jeans pocket to pull out his phone.  “Now do it.”

It was all too much.  Slick was dampening the back of his boxers and the emptiness in his stomach made him want to throw up.  When MJ pressed the phone into his hand, there really wasn’t another option.

He had to call Wade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter, MJ, and May spend Saturday together while they wait for MJ's parents to stop being absolute a**holes. When Peter and MJ sleep in his bed on Saturday night, things *almost* happen because Peter's senses get overwhelmed.
> 
> Meanwhile, academic life is coming to a big horrible head because the trio only has a month until graduation. Peter barely has time for anything else, except for a call from Tony Stark where the billionaire chides him for 1) not tolerating Wade as an Alpha, and 2) taking his heat regulators from Dr. Thompson's office.
> 
> Fast forward to when Peter's supposed to start his Phase 2 heat regulators. Something goes wrong, and Peter (*ominous music*) suddenly goes into heat in class.
> 
> There's only one thing to do, and that's call Wade.


	20. White-Knuckled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys have been awaiting the return of Peter/Wade, here it is! In all its smutty glory.
> 
> Also, because this chapter is mostly smut, I won't be summarizing in the post notes for everybody who has been skipping the reading due to anxiety purposes. But, the story is ramping up from here, so I will be doing it in the following chapters.
> 
> Also, I forgot to mention, but we hit the 100,000 word milestone in chapter 19, and now we're at chapter 20! Woo-hoo! (My hands are dead.)

____PETER

 

The strangest thing about unlocking his phone and scrolling back through his recent contacts to find Deadpool’s number was that he didn’t even have to look that far.  Somehow, everything had fallen apart in a little over two weeks. It seemed like months since Peter had ended things on the rooftop in Queens.

MJ already had her own phone up to her ear to call Aunt May, and she motioned for Peter to hurry up.

Peter swallowed, tried to ignore the sensation of slick sliding down his leg, the sting of his clothes against his sensitive skin, and pressed the “Call” button under  **DP <3 <3 <3 wit the fine ass** .  The line started ringing in a jarring way against his ear.

Part of Peter was scared shitless.  The fact that he’d just gone into heat in a classroom full of his peers and he didn’t know why was terrifying.  Was it his fault? Was four hours enough to cause him to go into heat? Or, like Dr. Thompson had feared, had someone tampered with his heat regulators?

Another part of him was so embarrassed that he couldn’t ever imagine showing his face at school again.  Not only had he just been dragged out of the classroom by his friends, but he was pretty sure everybody had seen the bulge in his pants, and Flash --  _ God, Flash of all people _ \-- had even looked at him with hungry eyes.  There was no way in hell that his classmates would ever think of him the same way again.

The third part of him wanted to see Wade, so badly.  He wanted to give in to the Omega instincts in his mind, the ones that were imploring him to find a strong Alpha immediately.  It was possible that soon, so soon, he’d be in Wade’s arms, he’d be in Wade’s care.

The line rang through.  Wade didn’t pick up.

Peter pulled the phone away from his ear and realized his hand was trembling.  He clutched MJ’s backpack against his front more tightly, willing panic not to set in.

“I didn’t get a hold of May, either,” MJ muttered, shoving her phone back into her pocket.  “I just sent a text, hopefully she’ll see it -- ” She broke off, perhaps because of how pathetic Peter looked.  “Hey, are you holding up?” There was no missing the worry in her voice.

Peter could feel precum dripping out of him at a dizzying rate.  He slid a fraction of an inch down the wall of the building and shook his head vigorously.

“What’s wrong?  Does it hurt?” In the back of his head, Peter remembered the conversation he’d had with MJ in his bed, when she’d asked if being in heat felt good at all.  He’d told her that it hurt, sometimes. And he hadn’t been lying -- the sensation of his organs shifting was agony, and the emptiness in his abdomen was nothing to laugh at.  But now, it was even more than that. It was the pain of embarrassment, the pain of being outed at school, and the pain of Wade not answering Peter’s call. 

All of that, however, was too much to put into words.  Instead, he went with the most pressing issue.

“I -- I really need to come,” he hissed, and he realized he was pressing the backpack against his erection with a vengeance.

MJ paled.  “Okay, well, that’s why we...that’s why we need to get Deadpool on the line,” she managed.  Her voice cracked a little as she spoke. “Give me your phone; I’m going to keep trying him.”  Peter obeyed her and immediately MJ lifted the phone to her ear, but her eyes didn’t leave Peter.

Peter forced himself to look away, at the ground.  Everything on him was starting to ache, and even holding himself upright seemed like an impossible task.  He watched MJ lower the phone, anger in her eyes, and redial. Twenty seconds later, she let out a frustrated growl and redialed once more.  This was pointless. He’d hurt Wade too badly; the mercenary had the right to ignore Peter’s phone calls for the rest of his life, if he wanted.

“MJ, drop it, I can’t expect Wade to -- ”

But suddenly MJ’s eyes flew wide.  “Deadpool? Holy shit you answered, thank  _ God _ .”  And then the phone was pressed up against Peter’s ear.

“ -- don’t know who you are but you tell me how you got this phone this second or I’ll find you and -- ”

“Wade,” Peter croaked, interrupting the tirade.  The voice went quiet on the other end, for a second.  Why was Peter’s heart racing so fast?

“Petey?  What’s going on?”

Peter swallowed and willed himself not to burst into tears.  “Wade, I need you to come get me. I’m at my school.”

“Why, what happened?”  The way that Wade’s voice sounded so worried made Peter’s knees weak.

“I...I went into heat, you have to come now...I’m outside….”  

He half-expected a barrage of questions, but Wade simply said, “I’ll be there faster than you can say ‘It’s clobbering time,’ baby boy,” and then the line went dead.

The phone fell out of Peter’s hand and he sank another inch down the wall.  Wade was coming. An Alpha --  _ his _ Alpha -- was on his way, and Peter was going to be in his arms in a minute, if he didn’t combust first.

MJ picked up his phone from the grass and looked at him with an expression he couldn’t place, her lip trapped between her teeth before she spoke.  “So he’s coming then?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to make it until he gets here?”

_ No. _  “I’m going to try.”  

MJ’s shoulders were folded in, and now Peter placed her body language as uncertain.  “Is there anything I can do?”

Fuck, the throbbing ache of his cock was so bad.  It was all too much. His body was turning on him, his senses were overpowered, picking up every breath of wind, the whine of every car that went by on the street.  Just like it had done in his other heats, his skin was getting to the point where any fabric touching it felt like burning. Peter closed his eyes and clutched MJ’s backpack.  He probably looked horribly pathetic. With his eyes closed, he sensed MJ moving in front of him, and then suddenly her arms were around him, and her weight was against him.

The shudder that went through him at the touch was involuntary.

“Is this okay?” she whispered, and  _ God _ she was leaning against the backpack, which was pressing against his front, and he couldn’t stop his hips as they pitched forward.  He buried his face into her shoulder and groaned in frustration, in pain, in pleasure. MJ’s breath seemed to catch in her throat. “Peter?”

“MJ, don’t move, don’t say anything or I’m going to…”  He needed to come, he needed to come, fuck, he needed to rut into MJ’s leg until he could come.

One of MJ’s hands tightened on his back.  The other reached between them and carefully unwedged the backpack from between their hips.  As soon as the material was free, Peter jerked towards her, his body seeking the pressure. “It’s okay, Peter,” MJ said breathlessly.  “If you’re okay, I’m okay.”

And then she shifted and her thigh was right there, between his legs.  Even the prospect of rutting against something sent a horrifying amount of slick out of his body.  “Oh God.”

MJ was holding him like he was fragile.  “Whatever you need, Peter, let me help.”

_ I’m about to rub myself off on MJ _ , he thought incredulously, while his body simultaneously gave in to the temptation.  Suddenly, his cock was pressed against her leg, and despite the sensitivity of his skin, he hitched himself forward.  The sensation made his eyes flutter shut.

If he’d been in his right mind, he would have pulled away, like he’d done on Saturday night.  Now, though, the emptiness in his abdomen was forcing slick out of him in a constant river, and his cock was spurting precum with every hint of friction.  He knew, logically, that finishing on MJ wasn’t going to help anything. He needed a knot. Yet he couldn’t stop himself.

“MJ, if you don’t tell me to stop, I’m not going to be able to...you know I’m going to end up…”

The arms behind his back tightened around him.  “Do it, if it helps you,” she said shakily. “I’m here.”

Peter pressed his hips up against MJ again, and pleasure went up his spine like sparks.  “Fuck.” She smelled all wrong -- not like Wade, not like an Alpha, but the feeling of her leg against his cock made him barely care.  He held the back of her shirt for leverage as he drove himself forward again and again. The emptiness in his stomach made him frantic; the rest of his insides felt molten.

As his orgasm started curling in his pelvis, Peter gripped MJ’s shoulder with a little more determination.  Near his ear, he could hear her breathing quickly. Her heartbeat was pounding in her neck, just as fast as it had been in his bed when she’d confessed that she’d liked him.

“Shit.   _ Shit _ ,” Peter gasped, and his lower body began tightening with the impending climax.

“Yes, it’s okay, Peter, come on,” MJ whispered, and then Peter was burying his face in her shoulder again, and he was groaning, and warmth was pulsing out of him.

For a moment, they stood still, holding each other.  Peter tried to catch his breath, but he knew it wasn’t over.  HIs logical mind knew that even when he’d come, there wouldn’t be any relief.  He was still achingly hard.

In frustration, Peter bucked forward again, this time hard enough that a little of his extra strength was behind it.  MJ let out a yelp as they tumbled back into the grass, Peter on top of her.

No.  God, no, this wasn’t right.  This was MJ. This was his  _ friend _ .  He’d just rutted against her, like an animal.

“Jesus, fucking hell,” Peter breathed, trying not to let the strain in his body leak into his voice.  “MJ, I’m so fucking sorry.” He pressed himself up on his palms and pushed himself a few feet away from her.

His friend was on her elbows, a damp spot on the thigh of her jeans, hair pulled askew.  She shook her head quickly. “Don’t apologize. Please, don’t apologize.”

“I have to.  I just -- ”

“Don’t.”

Peter closed his eyes and sank down onto his back on the ground.  When the back of his skull thudded into the grass, he took in a long inhale and tried to push the empty, lonely, urgent need away.  It was insistent, constant, throbbing maddeningly. His fingers tangled in the weeds of the schoolyard.

“Didn’t that help at all?”  MJ was talking to him from a few feet away, voice so quiet it would probably be inaudible to anyone else.

Peter forced his hand to release the clump of grass he’d already yanked out of the ground and gingerly touched the front of his pants, which was now very damp and probably looked it, too.  Even his own touch was enough to make him want to buck his hips into the air, but he resisted the urge. “MJ, when I’m like this, I need an Alpha.” His eyes were still closed, his eyelids red-tinged under the May sunshine.  “I really...I need Wade.”

As though Peter’s voice were a homing beacon, the sound of tires crunching twigs in the street in front of the school broke the moment.  A door swung open and two seconds later, the red tinge of his eyelids turned to black again. Peter forced his eyes open and looked up into brown irises set into a scarred face.  Thank God.

  
  


____WADE

  
  


“Where in the goddamn world did all this midday traffic come from?  Are we in the middle of Manhattan or the suburban part of Queens, for fuck’s sake?”  Deadpool landed a hard fist to the dash. “Cut that van off, Dopinder.”

The man next to him twisted the wheel suddenly and Wade grabbed the “oh shit” handle above him as they screeched into the next lane.  Behind them, a woman in a minivan with what looked like a whole soccer team in tow gave them the finger.

“I like you, Mr. Pool,” the taxi driver said excitedly, “if you even need a reminder.  You are everything I want to be. Callous. You don’t give a damn about being polite!”

Wade shrugged and watched for the right street sign.  Dopinder’s taxi didn’t have a GPS and it was bad practice for a mercenary to be trackable, so he didn’t have a phone equipped with it, either.  “Yeah, well, you can treat every other asshole in this world like shit, but you make sure you’re going home and being a fucking saint to Gita every night, or I’ll murder you,” he said distractedly.  Four more blocks to go, then another mile or so until they reached the school.

Dopinder was still grinning like an idiot.

[ _ Do you think he’s getting used to being threatened by us? _ ]

{ _ Goddamnit, we’re losing our touch.  We gotta shake it up. Have we said we’d disembowel him before?  Maybe that would get a rise. _ }

“You know, I’ve never seen you wear regular clothes, Mr. Pool.  It’s kind of odd, like you’re just another guy in New York.”

“Another guy in New York with an armory of weapons concealed on him, Dopinder, don’t you forget that.  I could easily take out your intestines and decorate this lovely public transit vehicle with them.”

Dopinder laughed.

{ _ How did that not fucking work?! _ }

It’s not like Wade really truly wanted to disembowel Dopinder.  But he liked it when people didn’t get too close to him. Except Peter.  And that had turned into a shitshow.

“Fuck, I hope that kid’s doing okay,” he said out loud.  “Turn right here.”

The car took a wide turn, nearly hitting a jogger who was in the crosswalk.  They were now on the home stretch toward Midtown School of Science and Technology, where his baby boy was waiting outside, probably a complete mess.  It made Wade throb with a mixture of arousal and anxiety.

“Who is this boy, again?”

“Somebody I care about, a lot.  You ever seen  _ Friends with Benefits _ or  _ No Strings Attached _ ?”

“Um…”

“Both mediocre comedies from 2011 when the movie industry somehow turned out two films that were absolutely exactly the same.  Anyway, we’ll summarize them both as, fuckbuddies fall in love.”

“And that’s who this Peter is?  Your fuckbuddy, Mr. Pool?”

“You’re goddamn right.”

Wade could see the school coming up on the left side.  It was still an urban school, so the parking lot was laughable, but there was a service road that went right in front of the building.  Dopinder swerved onto the service road and suddenly Wade’s heart was in his throat. Any second now, he’d see Petey.

[ _ Is that him? _ ]

“Where?” Deadpool said out loud.

{ _ There, on the ground next to that girl. _ }

Wade grabbed the latch of the door.  “Stop here,” he ordered, barely giving the taxi the chance to crunch to a standstill before he wrenched the door open.  Although Peter was thirty feet away, on the ground, Wade was there in a few seconds.

The situation looked...bad.  Peter was on his back, eyes pinched shut, one hand full of grass and the other on the front of his jeans, where there was a dark spot of moisture.  His legs were bent up in discomfort, like he almost wanted to curl himself into a ball.

A few feet away, there was another student.  Very pretty, even with her hair disheveled and her elbows dirty and a wet spot on the leg of her jeans.

[ _ What happened? _ ]

Wade looked down at Peter, trying to get some idea of what the kid had done.

Peter was squinting up at him.  “Hey, man.” God, his voice sounded fucked-out.  The damp spot on his jeans was cum, then. And it was probably the dark spot on the girl, too.

Wade looked at the girl again.  “You okay? Everybody okay?”

She nodded determinedly.  “You must be Deadpool.” With much more confidence than he’d expected, the student pushed herself to her feet and approached him.  “I’m MJ, Peter’s friend.”

Wade couldn’t help but point at the spot on her jeans.  “Did he…?”

The girl’s lips were a hard line.  “I was trying to help. I’m fine. I just need you to take care of him now.”

Wade nodded and patted the girl on the shoulder.  “Will do, sunshine.” But when Wade looked down at Peter again, something wasn’t right.

Fuck, he wanted to just get in the taxi again as much as he wanted to take Peter with him.  Even with the kid looking so desperate, so helpless, part of Wade was telling him to just leave Peter here on the grass to sort himself out.

Well, the part that was White box.

[ _ I know that we want him and everything, but what if all that’s going to happen is we fuck him for four days and then he’s just back to hating us?  Think about it. We gave this kid a million-star hotel room and all the care we could afford, and a day later he kicked us to the curb. _ ]

Wade swallowed.  “Yeah, that fucking sucked.  But we agreed to take care of Petey, not the other way around.”

The girl named MJ craned her neck around.  “Are you, like, talking to me or somebody else?”

In lieu of answering, Wade simply bent down, slid his hands under Peter’s shoulders and knees, and stood again, holding the kid like he weighed nothing.

“I’ll have him back in a jiffy lube!” Wade called over his shoulder as he carried the teenager back to the taxi.  Now that Peter was in his arms instead of just on the ground, the wind couldn’t carry his pheromones away as easily.  God, that sweet, innocent clean spice was filling his nose, coming from the scent gland under Peter’s jaw. The scent was probably triggering Wade’s own pheromones, judging by the way the kid’s eyes widened a little and he bit his lip.

Dopinder had put the car in park and scurried around to open the back door.  With a lack of ceremony, Wade deposited Peter onto the crusty seat and made sure all of the kid’s limbs were out of the way before he clicked the door shut.  Rather than ride in the front, Wade slid into the opposite back seat.

The car was full of pheromones.  He hadn’t really thought about that.

“You a fucker or a fuckee, Dopinder?” Wade asked the taxi driver as the man slid the shifter back into gear.

Dopinder steered the car away from the curb and followed the service road back toward the main street.  “Well, I get called a motherfucker all the time, Mr. Pool, mostly by Bandhu. The joke’s on him, though, because if I am a motherfucker, then he is also referring to his very own aunt.  We are impacted by the same family shame.”

{ _ I think it’s safe to say this man is a Beta. _ }

Wade looked over at Peter, who was watching the school disappear from the side window.  His hand was clutching the window divider between the front and back seat with a white-knuckled grip.

“Put your seatbelt on, Petey,” Wade said lowly, in the kind of voice that he knew made him sound like an Alpha.  Heat pooled in his groin when he saw Peter’s eyes go half-lidded and his head tilt away very slightly, exposing his neck submissively.  The kid reached his hand over his shoulder and pulled the seatbelt down to click into place. As he shifted, the smell of slick permeated the car.

Wade slid the window divider shut, blocking Dopinder from the conversation.

“How wet are you, baby boy?”

Peter inhaled through his nose.  “Very,” he whispered.

Jesus fuck.  “I’m gonna ask a whole game show worth of questions, Petey, like how you came to be in heat two weeks early.  But I’m gonna ask  _ those _ questions later.  Right now, all I want you to tell me is what you’re feeling, and what you want me to do to make you feel better.”

The tension in the car was as thick as the smell of pheromones.  “I feel scared,” Peter murmured, his voice sincere and quivering a little.  “I feel confused. I can feel that loneliness, in here.” His hand pressed to the lap restraint going across his lower belly.  “I’m really hard, even though I just...I just came…” Peter pulled his hand away from the window divider and covered his eyes. “...on my fucking friend.”

For a moment, Peter just folded over, one hand still on his stomach, the other on his face.  Then, cutting the silence, the kid let out a wounded sob, muffled by his palm.

Wade couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“I’m just that asshole who can’t control himself,” Peter continued, his voice still covered with equal parts hand and sniffling tears.  “And my whole class saw me, saw me losing it, and now I dragged you back into this, even though...we were done…”

[ _ That is a lot to unpack. _ ]

“All right, good,” Wade said calmly, trying to keep his voice from wavering.  “You told me how you feel. Now tell me how I can help you feel better.”

Under his hand, Wade could see Peter’s lips, wet with tears and saliva, as the kid grimaced into another sob.  He shook his head as he spoke. “I c-can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

“Do you want me to hold your hand?”

Peter shook his head ‘no.’

Wade tried again.  “Do you want me to stop talking?”

The response was another head shake.

“Do you want me to hold you?”

After a moment of hesitation, Peter nodded, hand still covering most of his face.  Wade unclicked his own seatbelt and scooted over to Peter’s side. He was about to put his arm around Peter’s shoulders when the kid simply curled over onto Wade’s lap, pulling the seatbelt strap taut.  Now he noticed that the back of Peter’s sweater was still covered in pieces of dead grass. He hoped the way that he began picking them off was comforting, at least. It helped Wade distract himself from the way a rut was pressing on the back of his mind.  With Peter’s new position, the smell of slick was incredibly strong. He couldn’t help but shiver when he remembered Peter’s response to Wade’s question of how wet he was.

Now that they were back onto a main street, somehow the traffic was even worse.  They’d come to a crawl as they headed back into the busier part of Queens. Wade opened the window divider just an inch.  “Isn’t there a better way to get to Peter’s place?”

“I think there is an accident, Mr. Pool.  It will likely take us quite a bit of extra time to arrive at our destination.”

Wade couldn’t help the frustrated growl he made as he pushed the window back into place.  On his lap, Peter’s breathing was shaky.

All the grass was gone from the back of Peter’s sweater, so Wade’s fingers started to drag over the fabric distractedly.  A hissing sound came from behind Peter’s hand.

“Don’t.  My skin is really sensitive to fabric.  It has to be skin-to-skin contact if you’re going to do that.”

{ _ I’m going to lose my shit if we don’t get to this kid’s house pronto. _ }

Sure enough, Wade’s rut was starting to form in his abdomen as he slid his hand under Peter’s sweater and checkered button-up.  The first thing he noticed was the feeling of strong muscles, but the way Peter was bent over also allowed Wade’s fingers to touch each bump of his spine.  He didn’t know exactly how sensitive the skin was, so he only ghosted his calloused hands over Peter’s back.

Even this touch was a lot.  He could tell by the way his rut was well and truly waiting for him now, and his dick was hard in his jeans.  He could also tell by the way he got a fresh wave of slick smell, and Peter’s pheromones seemed to pulse heavily in the car.

Peter’s response was more than just slick and pheromones, though.  He had finally let go of his face and was now gripping Wade’s knee.  His mouth was hot, breathing into the fabric of Wade’s pants leg.

“Is this too much, baby boy?” Wade managed.  His voice was trying very hard to betray him.

“No,  _ God _ , don’t stop.”  It wasn’t quite the response he was expecting, but Peter’s whine went straight to his cock.  Fuck, now  _ he _ was the one precumming like a teenager.

It was a bad idea, but Wade stopped letting his hand simply ghost over Peter’s back, and instead he curled his fingers and dragged his nails down the boy’s spine.

The groan Peter made was unholy.

{ _ I think I just came.  Dear Jesus. _ }

He should have stopped, he really should have.  Instead, he raked his nails up and down Peter’s back, pressing in harder with each stroke, as though he were showing Peter all his frustration at having been dumped so unceremoniously, as though he could work out that pain right now, in the back of a taxi.  Peter’s hand squeezed Wade’s knee so hard that he felt the kneecap dislocate, but the pain almost hurt in the good kind of way, and it would heal fast. Fuck, his cock was throbbing. The more he gave in, the more his own rut was threatening to hit him. He couldn’t have one hand on the wheel and the other playing with fire.  It just didn’t work.

When Wade’s fingers dragged so hard that he felt flakes of Peter’s skin under his fingernails, the kid arched his back and twisted Wade’s dislocated kneecap viciously.  They both made pained noises, which probably were loud enough for Dopinder to hear.

“Wade, oh God, how much farther,” Peter choked.  He arched back up into a sitting position, trapping Wade’s hand between his back and the seat.  Both Peter’s hands were pressing down on the front of his pants, as though he could force his swollen dick to stop being so harshly erect.

Wade peered out the window.  “This traffic is about as bad as it gets, Petey.  It’s like a fucking plot device, it’s so slow.”

“I can’t...I can’t make it.  I’m going to actually lose my sanity.”

There was no reason to do it, other than to chase the look of utter chaos on Peter’s face, but Wade didn’t give it a second thought as he slid his trapped hand down from Peter’s back, under the waistband of his boxers, and between the kid’s utterly drenched cheeks.  In one fluid motion, aided by the copious amounts of slick, he had a finger inside his Omega.

Peter’s whole head fell back as he grabbed Wade’s leg.  Wade should have known better, because the thrust of Peter’s hips was so involuntary that the kid’s super strength was on full-blast.  The seatbelt snapped, whipping Wade in the face as it retreated back into its reel.

“Oh, fuck!” Peter gasped.

“Oh, fuck yes,” Wade answered, and pressed a second finger in.

It was a horrible angle to finger somebody, but yet it was so hot.  He’d never felt Peter quite so soaked; his boxers could probably be wrung out, if not the ass of his jeans, too.  With each curl of his fingers, he tried to find the spot that all Omegas had; a little cluster of nerves that he knew could make them light up.  Peter’s response when Wade touched it the first time was an uncontrolled yell. Wade ignored Dopinder’s inquisitive glance and pressed his fingers against the nerves again and again.  Without the seatbelt, Peter’s hips were essentially in a constant state of elevation off the seat, held up by the kid’s white-knuckled hand on Wade’s leg and the “oh shit” bar.

Dopinder’s brown fingers tapped on the window, then slid the glass pane aside slightly.  “Mr. Pool, I don’t wish to disturb you but I think you are drawing attention from the other cars waiting in traffic with us.”  Like a good man, Dopinder slid the window back closed as soon as he was done talking.

“I don’t care, I don’t care,” Peter chanted, but Wade stilled his fingers and looked out the window on Peter’s right side.  Sure enough, although the driver of the vehicle on their right seemed oblivious, the little girl in the back seat was looking at them with confused blue eyes.

“Petey, I don’t want to blue-ball you, but I think Dopinder’s right.  How long can you wait until -- ”

But the kid was looking at him now with desperation.  “Wade. I. Can’t. Wait.”

“Baby boy -- ”

“Wade, please.”

“But -- ”

Peter looked like he might cry again.  He grabbed Wade’s sweatshirt in panic. “Please, Wade, please.  God,  _ please _ .  I’m begging you.  I’m fucking begging you.  I’m actually losing my mind.”

Wade usually liked to think of himself as fairly distanced from any real, affecting emotions.  As he’d told himself on many occasions, it wasn’t his M.O. to be emotional. Peter had brought out that neglected part of him in the past, as much as he’d usually tried to tuck it away.  { _ And for good reason, _ } he could hear Yellow box saying.  Because now, in the back of Dopinder’s taxi, he was feeling shit that confused him.  There was firstly, the fact that he was responsible for Spidey, for  _ Peter _ , for the kid’s safety, well-being.  Secondly, there was the feeling that he was failing that responsibility.  Why else would Peter literally cry every time he was in heat, unless Wade was fucking up?  And thirdly, there was the undeniable hurt that still sat in his chest, of Peter leaving him.  The way that the teenager was begging made him simultaneously feel so wanted, and so much like Peter would have begged anybody, whether it was Wade or not.

“What do you want?” Wade murmured.

Peter’s eyes flickered back and forth between Wade’s pupils.  “You know what I want, Wade.”

And there it was.

Because Wade  _ did _ know.  He  _ did _ know the miniscule changes in Peter’s scent; he knew the feelings that were driving the kid.  And Peter  _ knew _ that Wade knew.

The rut that had been bearing down on him finally swept in.

With one hand, Wade yanked his sweatshirt off over his head, forcing Peter to let go.  Normally, he didn’t like to be so exposed -- he was just wearing a T-shirt underneath -- but this was necessary.  “Slide your pants down for me, baby boy,” Wade instructed in his Alpha voice. Peter’s eyelids flickered shut for a moment before he reached for his waistband and started shoving his pants and boxers down.  Wade simultaneously covered Peter’s lap with the sweatshirt, to prevent obscenity from reaching any onlookers’ eyes. 

“Dopinder!” Wade yelled through the window.  “I know you’ve fucked Gita in this car. You better have a condom in here!”

The response from the driver was too muffled by the window to understand, but a moment later the window slid open again, and a foil packet fell into Wade’s lap.

{ _ All right, I’m officially okay with Dopinder not being afraid of us anymore.  Also, hell yeah, the author remembered the condom this time. Because with Peter’s heat coming on early, no way would we have time to get that birth control from the good doctor.  Continuity! _ }

“Shut up, Yellow,” Wade grunted as he started undoing his own jeans.  Before he exposed himself, he grabbed Peter by the hips and placed the kid on his lap, directly over his dick.

The heat, the dampness, the way Peter’s head fell back onto Wade’s shoulder -- it was so much.

Wade’s hand slid between them to finish pushing fabric out of the way and roll the condom on.  He was coating both his hand and the outside of the condom in Peter’s slick as he worked. Perfect.  His rut was painful in his belly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get you more ready,” Wade managed, his other hand on Peter’s chest.

“God, I’m so ready, don’t worry.”

And then Peter lifted his hips on his own, and Wade had his protected cock in his hand, and then he was breaching the tight heat and a fresh pulse of slick was sliding down his shaft and -- 

Peter’s exhale was not so much one of pain or pleasure, but one of utter relief.  Wade knew this was the only thing that could free the kid from the pain of heat.

Just that knowledge made him feel weak.  He was barely inside and he could already feel his rut pushing down towards his pelvis.

“Baby boy, I don’t think you’re going to have to...I mean, I’m already about to knot,” Wade groaned.

Peter’s fingertips assaulted Wade’s thighs.  With his kneecap already healed back in place, the grip brought on only a sweet type of electricity that focused the warmth into his groin further.  He was hilt-deep, but that hilt was thickening.

“I’m sure I’ll come when you knot,” Peter gasped.  “But it’d feel so much better if -- ”

“If what?”

Peter forced his head off Wade’s shoulder and pulled it forward slightly.  “Wade.”

“Yeah.”

“Bite me.”

Oh Jesus.

“What?”

“Bite me.  Bite me now.”

It didn’t make sense.  Peter had been so angry that Wade had bitten him before, had thought Wade was intent on bonding with him.  He wanted to ask why Peter had changed his mind, if only he could make his tongue work. “But I thought -- ”

Peter groaned.  “Fucking bite me, Wade.  I’m so fucking close.”

And so was Wade.  The knot at the base of his dick was hot and nearly full and the sensation was making his legs shake.  Without another word, Wade wrapped his arms around Peter’s chest and pulled the kid flush against him. His teeth sank into the place where Peter’s hairline met his neck.

And then they were both convulsing, and Wade felt Peter take one of his hands, wrench it up to his mouth, and bite down with equal ferocity.

Their moans mirrored each other as they filled the back of the taxi in the middle of Queens traffic.  Wade closed his eyes, allowing himself to breathe into Peter’s hair. The sensation of his own cum filling the condom while Peter’s muscles clenched around his knot out of instinct -- God, it was enough to make his head burst with pleasure.  Even when the waves of their orgasms subsided, neither of them moved for a solid minute.

Wade had always known that if there was one masked vigilante out there who was as chatty as he was, it was Spider-Man.  And, sure enough, the kid’s first instinct was to talk, taking Wade’s hand out of his mouth as he did.

“I think I ruined your sweatshirt.”

Wade fully intended on throwing a flirty remark back at Peter, but instead, he released his jaw from the kid’s skin, stared at the teeth marks, and said: “Why did you want me to bite you?”

He had to ask.  He had to ask because this was the fucking thing that had set the whole relationship ablaze before.  This was why Peter had left him. So why had he asked for it this time?

Peter’s heartbeat was fast under Wade’s hand as he answered.  “It feels right. When you bite me. And...I feel the compulsion to bite you, too.”

“But -- ”

“And,” Peter cut in, “I decided that since we’re already bonded there was no reason not to enjoy that feeling.”  The words came tumbling from him like he’d been stuck with truth serum from some shitty spy novel or  _ Ant-Man and the Wasp _ .

“What do you mean, we’re already bonded?”

Peter squeezed Wade’s bitten hand.  “I mean, you know, you bit me, and I bit you back, and that means we’re...you know, partners now.  I’m...I’m sorry I said I didn’t want to be with you anymore. I was just upset that you bonded with me without asking, so early on.  I was afraid. That...that how I  _ felt _ …” 

And suddenly Wade understood.

[ _ Oh my God. _ ]

{ _ Holy shit. _ }

Wade laughed.  “Oh, baby boy, we’re about to have a whole conversation that’s going to make you feel a LOT better.  We’re not bonded.”

Peter was still clutching Wade’s hand in his, and his grip went so hard that it hurt a little.  The kid twisted around until he could almost look Wade in the eye.

“Um.  What are you talking about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I don't know if anyone will see this except newer readers. But I think I need an additional week on chapter 21. I'll go into details in the notes on the next chapter!


	21. Flicker Of Anxiety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, you guys. I'm sorry that this chapter is several days late.  
> In my defense: this was very hard for me to get together. Last week we were training a new person at work who promptly quit two days after he started and it. was. stressful. My wrists have also been absolute murder recently. And my head has just not been functioning in a writerly way, which made me cringe the whole time I was writing this. I hope it isn't utter crap.
> 
> The biggest change in my life though is that my fiance and I decided to get in better shape for our wedding, so we hired a personal trainer and are now working out SIX DAYS A WEEK. Yes, we are insane. With all the new meal plans and time spent at the gym, I've had zero time to write for fun. So I just really appreciate everyone's patience.
> 
> We're getting up to the climax of the story now, so be prepared for some tense moments. There will be brief summarizing notes at the end of the chapter.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this one and please, please leave comments! I loved the comments on the previous chapter and I just absolutely live for your kind words. Thank you! And if I have trouble posting every week because of this new life I've got going on -- don't worry. I will never abandon this fic. I just may need a few extra days sometimes to get the chapter done.

___PETER

 

In all his years of being in school, Peter could probably count on one hand how many times he’d been profoundly confused.  After all, the subjects that most people struggled with were the ones he excelled at. Even at Midtown Tech, where everyone was mildly genius, he was pretty much still near the top of his class, and he knew it.  And as much as he complained about the liberal arts to his friends and Aunt May, he always was on a decent footing there, too. (Except giving speeches. He found it much easier to talk when he was under a mask.)

Now, though, sitting in the back of a taxi in horrifyingly bad traffic, Peter was completely and utterly confounded.

He and Wade had managed to separate themselves after a few minutes, though they had to forego cleaning up, as they had no towels.  Peter instead had to tuck himself back into his utterly drenched boxers and jeans while Wade tied off the condom and tried to explain why they weren’t, in fact, bonded.

“...so basically, baby boy, you and I are just too super.  On a molecular level, our bodies start to heal as soon as they’re damaged.  That includes bonding bites. Even if I were to sink my teeth into you for a good ten minutes, your body would be so focused on healing the bite that it wouldn’t release the hormones that it needs to actually bond with me.”

Peter sat gingerly on the seat, too aware of just how uncomfortable he was sitting in a puddle of slick.  He shifted slightly and stared at Deadpool’s hands, which were shining with slick along all of his scars. “Does that mean we...can’t bond at all?”

Wade tossed the tied condom onto the floor of the taxi.  He was sitting with his sweatshirt over his own lap now, to save the decency of the little girl in the next car over.  She had, mercifully, lost interest at some point and was now playing Angry Birds on an iPad. “Well, I thought that at first.  But, low and be-fucking-hold, Dr. Thompson is coming in clutch for all kinds of people out there who can’t bond naturally. She’s got a stash of bonding hormone in her office.  We just have to take an injection of it before we want to bond, and then the bites will actually work.”

“So...but…”  Peter was still staring at Wade’s slick-covered hand, his mind whirring through two weeks of emotion and confusion.  Going out on a date, getting an expensive hotel room for his heat -- those weren’t signs that Deadpool had fallen victim to bonding hormones.  He’d actually wanted to do those things. And the warm feelings that Peter got whenever he thought of Wade, the contentment he felt just to be around him -- that was real, too.

He was sure it looked like he had short-circuited, but Wade was waiting patiently for him to gather his thoughts.

Slowly, but surely, Peter raised his eyes to meet the brown ones across from him.

“Do you like me, Wade?”

Wade’s eyes softened.  “Petey. How do you not know?”

“I thought...I’d thought maybe everything I’d felt, or everything you’d felt...had been because we bonded early,” Peter admitted.

Sympathy melted into all of Wade’s features.  Suddenly, the slick-covered hand was on Peter’s, and Peter hardly cared that he was being touched with his own fluids.  “Baby boy, let me say this right now, loud and clear. I care about you, so, so much. I cared about you before we ever started this whole arrangement.  I just didn’t realize how much until I got to see who you really are.”

Peter’s eyes stung.  “Who I really am? You mean this  _ mess _ I become?”

“I mean who you really are.  Nobody is strong all the time, Petey.  When your Omega side comes out, that’s just as much a part of you as when you’re Spider-Man.  I love every part of you.”

Peter inhaled sharply and met Wade’s eyes again.  “What?”

Suddenly, a loud buzzing sound came to life from within the taxi.  Somehow, Peter’s phone had ended up on the floor among all the craziness.  He let go of Wade’s slippery hand and wiped the fluid off on the knee of his jeans before bending double to fetch his phone out from under the seat.  The caller ID read  _ Mr. Stark _ .

“Oh God, he must have heard about me going into heat at school.”

Wade furrowed his eyebrows.  “Want me to handle it? I’ll tell him to mind his own goddamn business for once.  That guy has his fingers in more pies than a baker with a pastry fetish.”

Peter would have laughed, if his racing heartbeat weren’t sitting in his throat.  He shook his head at Wade’s offer and slid the phone icon to “answer.” 

“Kid, holy shit,” were the first words he heard when he picked up.  Peter looked at Wade’s face while he listened. “Are you okay? Why did I just hear that you went into heat at school?  And where the fuck did you go? Who picked you up?”

“Deadpool is with me.  We’re stuck in traffic probably a couple miles from my house.”

Mr. Stark sighed over the phone.  “At least you’re with someone. But you have to be losing your mind right now.”

Peter swallowed.  Admitting that he was okay at the moment meant admitting that he was in a reprieve between waves, and that meant admitting to having sex with Wade in a taxi in the middle of traffic.  At least he could skirt around the truth. “I’ve been better.”

“Well listen, Pete,” Mr. Stark said quickly, “I don’t like how this looks.  The fact that you went into heat early, after things in Dr. Thompson’s office were tampered with….  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little worried. We’ll need to set you up with the doctor as soon as you’re in a fit state.  I’ll drive you to her office personally; it’s not far from my penthouse -- ”

There was a beeping noise on the other end of the phone, loud and incessant.  Mr. Stark’s responding sigh was audible. “Look, Peter, I’ll call you back. Later.”  The line suddenly clicked out, and Peter lowered the phone into damp lap.

While he’d been on the line, traffic had suddenly started to edge forward, and they were actually making some progress towards his apartment.  Peter pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you think that my regulators were tampered with?” he said out loud, mostly to Wade, but also to himself.  

Wade’s hand was back on Peter’s; he’d wiped the slick off this time.  The presence of its warm weight, and the texture of the scars, were comforting.  “I don’t know, baby boy. That’s for the doc to say. But we can’t worry about that right now.  All we have to worry about is making you feel better. And that means that when we get to your apartment, I’m going to do really great things to you.”

Peter was far from entering another wave of heat, but the way Wade’s voice went low as he spoke the last few words -- Peter could feel tingling interest in his body.  He shivered slightly. Now that he knew that Wade truly wanted him, the sexual tension was inevitable and palpable.

Still, it wasn’t smart to waste his valuable energy on getting frisky when he wasn’t in the middle of a wave of heat.  Instead, Peter gave into his desire to be close to the mercenary by leaning on Wade’s broad chest. His nose came to just under Wade’s neck, where the smell of Alpha pheromones seemed to be lingering just under the surface.

By the time they arrived at Peter’s apartment about twenty minutes later, Peter was sleepy and lightly aroused.  When they pulled up in front of the his building and Peter unlatched the door of the taxi, he realized that he was about half-hard in his wet jeans.  It was impossible not to blush as Wade (who seemed to have skipped paying the cabbie) nudged up behind him and gently guided him into the building, simultaneously hiding the soaked back of Peter’s pants from the general public.  His front still probably looked like he wet himself, but it was a quick shuffle to the elevator and then he and Wade were by themselves for the short ride up to Peter’s floor.

Unfortunately, the blessed solitude didn’t last very long.

When the elevator dinged for his floor, Peter stepped out into the hallway, only to see a woman with pale skin and short, black hair, pacing outside the door to his apartment.

Deadpool went rigid behind him.  The mercenary grabbed Peter’s shirt and yanked him back into the elevator before Dr. Thompson even got a chance to see them.

Peter punched the “close door” button and flattened himself against the plastic facade interior of the elevator.  He stared at Wade. “She fucking knows who I am,” Peter whispered frantically.

Wade had his hoodie back on, but Peter could see his brown eyes, framed by the pulled-tight hood.  He tried not to look at the dark spots of fluid on the soft fabric. “Did you let anything slip when you visited her as Spidey?”  The door bounced shut loudly, making Peter wince a little as he racked his brains for any instance in which he might have given away his identity.  When he pulled up nothing, he gave his head a small shake. Wade took his gaze off Peter and looked around the elevator, clearly thinking.

“Well, I recently acquired a safe house not far from here.  We could skip out here and go there instead. But I know that you’d probably rather be in your home, especially when you don’t have any extra clothes with you.  The last thing I want is for you to be uncomfortable again.” Peter felt another rush of affection for Wade as the man folded his arms, still thinking. “I think we better get you into your apartment.  At least if she tries to pull anything, she’s got two enhanced humans who can restrain her.”

Peter gripped the handle that ran around the edge of the elevator.  “What do you think she’d try to pull?”

“Baby boy, when you’ve been in the mercenary business as long as I have, your brain gets pretty creative with imagining what others could do to you.  And vice versa.” He shrugged. “But in this case, I think our odds are pretty respectable. Let’s greet the good doctor.”

“Okay,” Peter said, and touched the “open door” button, “but don’t hurt her.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, baby boy,” Wade answered behind him as Peter stepped out into the hallway.

This time, Dr. Thompson was looking their direction.  

Despite the fact that he was very clearly an Omega -- the stains on his jeans could probably make that clear from a mile away -- Peter tried the offensive.  He pulled a harder New York accent than his normal, subtle one, and shouted, “Hey lady! Get away from my door!” All the while, he strode confidently toward her, trying to hide the fact that he felt like puking.

A flicker of anxiety went across Dr. Thompson’s face, but she folded her hands in front of her and said loudly and clearly, “Peter.”

“What did I say?” Peter tried again, a little more aggressively.  He was about fifteen feet from her now, and she was definitely mapping his face for future reference.  “Get the fuck outta here.”

He’d seen, up close, the behavior of New Yorkers his whole life.  But since becoming Spider-Man, he’d also gotten to witness people in stressful situations.  Their reactions often gave away the kind of people they were. It was incredible how often tough guys with guns ran away, or ditched their friends, or tried to shoot him from behind like cowards, even though they knew he had a strict policy against killing people.  He’d seen women shrink in front of him, terrified because he was a man that could easily overpower them, and sometimes just living in a city like New York made them constantly fearful for their lives.

Peter expected Dr. Thompson to turn around and walk or even run away.  Especially since, while Peter was an Omega, and smaller in stature, he had Wade, a hulking Alpha with a scarred face, following behind him like a shark.

Dr. Thompson, however, stood firmly, looked at Peter straight in the eye, and said, “Peter, I need to talk to you.  And I didn’t take the subway from my office all the way here just for you to try to scare me off. I know who you are.”  She nodded at Wade. “Good to see you, Deadpool.”

Peter couldn’t help but glare at her, even if he was impressed.  He dropped his fake accent. “Did you knock on the door already? Does my aunt know you’re out here?”

“I did knock.  No one answered.”

“All right, then.”  Peter grabbed the handle of the door and turned it so hard that the locking mechanism snapped.  His key was sitting in his backpack, which was with Ned. He gestured inside and Dr. Thompson stepped into his apartment, clearly hiding her temptation to look around and gather as many details about Peter -- about Spider-Man -- as she could.  Wade clicked the door shut, and then they were all standing in Peter’s apartment, looking at each other.

Wade spoke first.

“So explain to us how you knew who Peter was.  Because if you snooped, I’m going to have to rethink our cordial relationship.  And if you hired someone to follow this kid, I’m going to have to kill the person you hired.”

Dr. Thompson raised her hands in a peaceful way.  “I would never snoop. Tony Stark trusted me enough to treat you, didn’t he?  He knew that I wouldn’t care about who you are under the mask.”

“So how’d you find out then?” Peter asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

“Well,” she said slowly, “as it turns out, you know my nephew.  And he sent me a text a little over an hour ago that a boy named Peter Parker, whom everyone had previously thought was a Beta, went into heat today in class.”

Peter gaped at her.  “Dr.  _ Thompson _ ...I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming.  Your nephew is Flash, isn’t he?”

“Well, we usually call him Eugene, but yes, I’ve heard that he goes by Flash at school.”

A heavy weight settled on his shoulder, indicating that Wade had put his hand there.  “Wait a second. Why would your nephew text you something like that?”

Dr. Thompson looked apologetic.  “Well, we’ve always had a pretty close relationship, and he thought it would be of professional interest to me.  Since, as you both know, I work with these kinds of matters.” Peter looked down at the floor as she continued. “I knew immediately that you and Spider-Man must be the same person.  I’d been afraid that something like this would happen since you took your regulators without allowing me time to inspect them.”

Peter shivered with a combination of shame and the cool air conditioning making his wet jeans feel like ice against his most sensitive regions.  “Sorry, I just...it wasn’t the smartest move.”

“Well, I need to look at them now.  Obviously you’re in heat, so there isn’t much we can do about that.  But I need to make sure they’re not laced with anything besides heat inducers.”

Wade’s hand tightened its grip on his shoulder.  “Like what?” he growled.

Dr. Thompson hesitated for a moment before answering.  “Anything. Toxins, poisons...I mean, I don’t know who tampered with the regulators, but it must have been someone who was willing to start a fire as a diversion to achieve their plan.”

“I...I don’t have them with me.  All of my stuff is in my backpack at school, with my friend.”

The doctor’s face fell a little.  “Any chance of getting it?” Peter shrugged and shook his head.

“School will be out in an hour, maybe, but with traffic I think it’ll take my friend a little bit to get home.”  Peter felt guilt spread in his chest as Dr. Thompson bit her lip. “If you want to stay until my friend brings my backpack, can I get you a cup of tea or something?”

After her affirmative nod, Peter let Wade escort the doctor to the couch while he went to the kitchen to boil some water.  

Of course, he’d barely put the kettle on the stove when he felt the stirrings of his second wave of heat.  Tingling sensitivity perked up his previously-flaccid erection and stole the strength from his legs. For a moment, Peter had to stabilize himself on the kitchen counter; his sweaty palms pressed into the plastic-coated countertop like it was a lifeline.  Then, when he could, he straightened up and walked directly to his room, not pausing to say a word to either Wade or the doctor.

He’d barely shut the door to his room with trembling hands before he sank to the floor.

Peter rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling as he measured his breaths.  His wet jeans pressed painfully on his swelling cock; he finally undid the button with shaking hands and kicked them off.  His boxers, which were saturated with fluids, followed. As the familiar skin sensitivity prickled up his back, he sat up just enough to tear his shirt off over his head; he was now naked on his bedroom floor, leaking slick and precum and feeling utterly empty again.

Although Peter knew that Flash -- and his whole class -- had witnessed Peter going into heat, he was now keenly aware of the fact that there was no way that word wouldn’t spread.  Even Flash’s  _ aunt _ knew about it.  By the time school got out, the news would probably have made its way around nearly the whole building.  And they’d all be able to picture Peter just like this, groaning and shivering and painfully hard, a slave to his Omega hormones.  With a wave of nausea, Peter remembered Flash joking about the Omega girl he’d bedded. Maybe Flash was imagining Peter acting the same way as the desperate Omega girl, begging to be impaled on an Alpha cock.  Maybe the whole class would see Peter this way. 

Sure, there were students who were Omegas.  But they’d presented as Omegas before they turned fifteen, and had endured some ridicule then, and were now just accepted.  An Omega that didn’t present until eighteen -- or hid their second gender until age eighteen -- was probably unheard of. 

“At least Principal Morita will know where I am now,” Peter said out loud, even though the thought of his principal also being able to visualize him in this state made him want to throw up.  He wondered what Ned had told Morita when Peter and MJ had been outside.

And MJ.  Fucking Christ.  Peter had humped her leg like a dog.  He’d come hard enough to get her jeans wet.  Even if she liked him on some level, there was no way that she’d enjoyed him using her leg to get off, even if he could barely control himself while doing it.

A deafening car alarm went off somewhere in the street under Peter’s window.  He jerked with the sudden sensory intrusion and rolled onto his side to block the sound a little.  His cock, which was red from being swollen, dipped and touched the carpet, leaving a drop of precum behind.  The sight of it made him reach down and grip himself. He ran his thumb through the precum beading on the head and felt a surge of pleasure that bolted straight into his pelvis.  In the distance, the car alarm stopped.

Against his better judgment, Peter ran his thumb over the head of his cock again, and again.  Each swipe of friction made his hips jolt; slick slid out of him and down his ass cheek. The emptiness in his abdomen urged him on.  He knew that coming on his own wouldn’t do anything for him, but sometimes it felt like he didn’t have a choice. Chasing his release was the only option.  And Wade was in the other room with Dr. Thompson.

Peter started stroking himself in earnest.

He’d gotten himself off in this room, his bedroom, too many times to count.  But each time he was in heat felt so different from when he wasn’t. Normally, he would have kept his lips pressed together while he built the pressure in his body.  Now, he couldn’t help but let his lips fall open and a broken noise escape from his chest.

Peter squirmed as his abs tightened.  He was so close...not to release, he knew, but to the waves of orgasmic pleasure that would break over him, leaving him frustrated and still desperately hard when they dissipated.  Just a dozen more strokes or so would do it….

The door to the room swung open, and Peter was hit with such a wave of Alpha hormones that he lost his focus for a moment, drowning in their headiness.  Wade’s hand closed around Peter’s wrist and pressed it into the carpet, preventing Peter from bringing himself to climax.

“Stop, I was going to come, please,” Peter whined through the fog of pheromones.  Wade was kneeling over him, face unreadable.

Then, the next second, Wade’s mouth was on Peter’s lips.

Somewhere in Peter’s abdomen, the empty space shivered with desperation.  Wade, an Alpha, the man he needed, was kissing him, his barrel chest pressing down on Peter’s narrow frame in a comforting way.  Peter bucked his hips upward, and his extra strength made Wade bounce on top of him. “Wade, what are you waiting for?” Peter gasped as the mercenary broke away for a breath.

Wade was panting too, sending warm, hot puffs of air down onto Peter’s face.  “I only had the one condom, baby boy. Unless you’ve got more in this room of yours, I’m going to need to run to either a convenience store or my nearest safe house.”

“Fuck.”  Peter pressed his heels into the floor.  “We should have just gone to your safe house when we had the chance.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think about it.  Too bad Dr. Thompson didn’t bring the contraceptive shot either.”  Wade turned to his shoulder for a second, an angry look on his face.  “Shut up, it is  _ not _ a plot device.”

Peter closed his eyes against the tense emptiness in his body.  “Whatever you do, Wade, do it fast. I need you to knot me. I really, really need it.”

Wade’s scarred lips pressed against Peter’s again, eagerly, for just a moment.  “God, Petey, I love it when you say shit like that. You wait here. I’ll be back in like, five, ten minutes  _ tops _ .”  Suddenly, the heavy, comforting weight on top of Peter was gone.  Wade stood up and pulled Peter’s door open again. “And try not to touch yourself, baby boy.  I know it’s hard to resist, but you’re only going to tire yourself out.”

It was a tall order.  Peter could feel his hands shaking, but rather than fly back to his cock now that his wrists were free, Peter determinedly folded his arms over his chest.  “Just get back here soon.”

A small smile curved Wade’s lips.  “You got it, Spidey.” A beat passed, and Wade was taking off his sweatshirt again, which was full of the scent of Peter and Wade mingled together.  The man knelt over Peter and, gently, pulled the sweatshirt over Peter’s head, so that his arms were inside the body of it instead of the sleeves. For some reason, the hoodie didn’t aggravate Peter’s fabric-sensitive skin.  

There was another quick press of lips against his own, and then Peter watched Wade stand up again.  With a quick glance back, Wade slipped out the door and left Peter to close his eyes, clench his fists, and count the seconds until Wade would come back and give him some relief.

  
  


____WADE

 

The safe house Wade was going to now was...not entirely a safe house, to be honest.  But, for all intents and purposes, it was a house. And relatively safe.

{ _ I just hope Weasel’s grandma doesn’t have a blacklight so she can’t see how much you’ve jacked off everywhere while you’ve been squatting in her house. _ }

“Hey, I’m not a perv.  I’ve been good about cleaning up.”  Wade crossed the street, determinedly not meeting anyone’s eyes.  He was never out without long sleeves and a hood to cover his scars, for this very reason.  Since he’d given his hoodie to Peter, he was gathering strange looks as he strode down the street, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans.

[ _ Now when are you going to admit that you’ve been hanging out there for the last week because you were secretly hoping to run into Peter? _ ]

“I wasn’t expecting to run into Petey.  I was ready to never see him again.”

{ _ Bullshit. _ }

“I wouldn’t have complained if I saw Spidey swinging around though.”

[ _ There it is. _ ]

Wade had to admit that when Weasel had mentioned that his grandma was going out of town, he’d seen the opportunity and seized it.  He knew that Weasel’s grandma lived in Queens -- as a matter of interest -- and the good news was that she was nowhere near as street smart as her grandson.  He’d found the spare key under the flowerpot, which was remarkably trusting for a woman who had lived in New York her whole life. But, it prevented him from needing to break in, so he couldn’t help but feel appreciative of the woman.

He couldn’t quite say the same about the lovely constant smell of mothballs that permeated the house.  It was a small price to pay now, though, that he had a place so close to Peter’s apartment where he just happened to have a small stash of stuff.  Including condoms.

[ _ Don’t tell Peter why you have nearly a whole box of condoms sitting here. _ ]

Wade reached down his shirt to grab the key hanging around his neck as he reached the door.  “He’d understand.”

{ _ Yeah, he dropped us like a hot potato.  He can’t blame us for entertaining the idea of calling up a sex worker or two. _ }

The door opened and Wade was hit with the smell of mothballs as he ducked inside, slamming the door behind him.  The living room was quintessentially old lady-themed, with cream-colored walls and pink flowery upholstery everywhere.  “Yeah, but I didn’t call anybody. You know that’s why I’ve been jacking off so much, dipshit.”

{ _ We missed Spidey’s ass too much to plow anyone else. _ }

[ _ And here I thought it was because the combination of our skin and this house that is clearly not ours would lead any intelligent Omega to believe you’re a serial killer. _ ]

Wade rolled his eyes and ripped open one of his black duffel bags sitting next to the frilly couch.  “And that’s when I explain that I’m a mercenary, not a serial killer. There is a distinction.” His hand found the box of condoms, which he’d guiltily shoved under his suit and several weapons.  “You guys think the whole box will do it? Or is Petey gonna be extra horny now that I’ve told him how I feel?”

Yellow started to say something along the lines of { _ Personally, I think we’ll need three boxes _ } when Wade’s ears perked up.  The location of Weasel’s grandma’s place was fairly central to some public places -- it was a relatively old house -- and there was a decent amount of car and foot traffic that passed by on the street immediately in front of it.  Since he’d been squatting here, he’d gotten used to the near-constant hum of cars and occasional people-chatter. But the sounds on the street had changed.

Instead of a hum of cars and chatter of people, it sounded more like a hum of people.  Voices were keyed higher: concern, fear. The sound of cars had died down: gridlock.

Box of condoms still in his hand, Wade got to his feet and found the nearest lace-curtained window.  He pulled the curtain aside as far as he could and pressed his bare forehead to the glass. People were staring and pointing at something in the direction of Manhattan -- Wade tilted his head to follow their looks.

Almost out of the frame of what was visible through the window, there was just the corner of something out of place over the New York skyline.  A low cloud.

“Psht.  People are pansies.  Freaking out over a cloud,” Wade scoffed, pulling his face away from the window.  “To think that for a moment, I almost let myself get distracted from grabbing that spider booty.”

[ _ I don’t think that was just a cloud. _ ]

{ _ Shut up, White.  The only thing that could tear us away from that gorgeous, dripping Omega ass is the apocal-- _ }

Yellow was drowned out once more by a deafening sound overhead.  Wade swore. There was no mistaking the rhythmic  _ whoomp-whoomp-whoomp _ sound.  It was a military helicopter.

“Goddamnit.  If this is another stupid alien attack I’m gonna kill Thanos myself.  Maybe fuck his lady love first, just for good measure.” Wade strode to the door and wrenched it open to get a better look at the commotion.

To be fair, at first glance, it did look like a cloud.  A stupid little cloud, just hanging a little too low over Manhattan.  Over the building that Stark’s penthouse topped, just out of coincidence.  Total coincidence.

Except it was not a natural cloud.  The wind at that altitude was whipping and pulling the vapor away, but it was thick and unmoving around the top of Stark’s building.  It was generating there.

“Fucking Iron Ass.  You think it’s an experiment gone wrong?”

{ _ Maybe he’s off his rocker and decided he never wants to see the New York skyline again. _ }

[ _ Yeah, maybe he just wants to be an ultra-recluse. _ ]

{ _ Maybe he’s creating a Geostorm. _ }

[ _ Or maybe it’s Hydra. _ ]

Wade froze.  “What did you just say, White?”

[ _ I said, maybe it’s Hydra.  They clearly were creating a plan to attack certain Avengers and people affiliated with the Avengers.  With Steve Rogers gone, Tony Stark is essentially the head of the Avengers. Now there’s a gaseous substance hovering around Tony Stark’s penthouse, and we know Hydra was developing personalized nerve agents at their Canadian facility.  It could be Hydra. _ ]

People on the street were still pointing, their voices high and nervous, traffic backing up all the way down the street.  No one was paying any attention to him.

Wade grit his teeth.  He really wanted White’s speculations to seem outlandish.  If only he could look up at the cloud over Iron Man’s tower and know for a fact that it wasn’t a toxic gas and that Stark’s life wasn’t in danger.

But he couldn’t.

“Fuck me up the ass.”

It took Wade exactly two minutes and thirty-seven seconds from that moment to be running down the steps of Weasel’s grandmother’s house, back up the street towards Peter’s apartment.  Only this time, people weren’t staring at him because of his skin. They were probably staring at the red and black suit, obvious katanas, and massive duffel bag slung over his shoulder.  Or maybe they were just wondering where he was going with a whole box of condoms in his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief summary:
> 
> After having sex in the taxi, Wade explains how he and Peter can't naturally bond and will need bonding hormone. Peter realizes that his feelings toward Wade are real, and vice versa. Their fuzzy convo is interrupted by Tony Stark calling Peter and expressing his concern over Peter's spontaneous heat.
> 
> When Peter and Wade finally arrive at Peter's apartment, Dr. Thompson is waiting outside Peter's door. It turns out that her nephew is Flash Thompson, and her nephew told her that a boy named Peter Parker went into heat at school. (Dr. Thompson makes the connection between Spider-Man and Peter.) She wants to inspect Peter's regulators, but they happen to be at the bottom of Peter's backpack, which is still with Ned.
> 
> A minute later, Peter enters his second wave of heat. Wade wants to help, but they are woefully lacking in condoms. Wade decides to run to his nearby safe house to grab some. However, while he's running his errand, he sees there's some kind of cloud hovering over Tony Stark's penthouse in Manhattan. White box helpfully tells him that it's probably Hydra. Wade prepares to kick some ass. End chapter.


	22. Devoured From The Inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could tell by the comments that you all were a little salty at the smut getting interrupted by a catastrophe. So I'm letting the boys have their smut before they go off to save the world. Enjoy it while you can. X)
> 
> In other words, no summary at the end because everything takes place in Peter's bedroom ;)

 

____PETER

 

Realistically, Peter knew that Wade had only been gone for a few minutes.  That didn’t change that it felt like his Alpha, his lifeline to crawling his way out of the pain of his heat, had been gone for several hours.

With the Alpha scent slowly dissipating from the room, there wasn’t much to distract him from the empty feeling in his body.  The emptiness seemed to sense that Deadpool was nowhere near him; in response, it was gripping him painfully, reminding him that his only survival instinct was to be knotted, telling him that it didn’t matter which Alpha did it, as long as it was done.  The circle of slick on the carpet underneath him was growing to an embarrassing circumference. Still, he pinned one hand under each damp armpit. With each passing minute, it was getting harder not to touch his cock. His body was spasming with the lack of contact, making him clench his muscles, causing his reddened cock to bob up and down and drip precum onto the hem of Wade’s sweatshirt.

He probably would have cried out in frustration by now, except he was extremely aware of Dr. Thompson still sitting in the next room.  He was incredibly aware of everything, to a maddening extent. The clock cracked off each second from its perch on the wall. Behind the door, sitting on the couch, he could hear Dr. Thompson breathing.  His own heartbeat was absolutely deafening in his ears. With his brain distracted by everything going on with his body, he was having a hard time reeling in his spider-senses. His mental sense dial, which he could usually turn down from 11 to around an 8, seemed to be at around 15, driving on towards 20.  And underneath the constant sensory input, his mind was panicking.

How far was Wade’s safe house?  How long would it take him to get back?  When had Wade gotten a safe house in Queens?  How many condoms would Wade bring? Were the regulators poisoned?  Was he going to die before he came in Wade’s arms again?

“Stop,” Peter whined.  He could feel the sweat on his upper lip salting his tongue.  “Please. Please let it stop.”

The sound of a door opening split everything else.  It wasn’t his bedroom door, but the door leading into the apartment from the hallway.  Peter blinked his eyes open and stared through the wall, as if he had X-ray vision and could see who it was.   _ Please, God, let it be Wade. _

The couch creaked as Dr. Thompson stood up.  Peter could hear the doctor’s breathing stutter slightly.  Then, she spoke.

“Mrs. Parker, I presume.”

_ Fuck. _

“Um, yes, I’m May Parker.  May I ask who you are, and what you’re doing here?”

Peter could hear the whole conversation, the explanation that Dr. Thompson gave to his silent aunt, but he didn’t want to listen.  It was all too much. If he had to face any more embarrassment today, he might just combust. 

“Where is he?” Aunt May was asking.

“In his bedroom.”

_ Oh shit. _  Peter tore his hands out from under his armpits, struggling in the sweatshirt for a moment, then pushed himself up with his elbows and pulled the sweatshirt down to his thighs.  He covered himself up just in time for the doorknob to turn.

“Oh my God, Peter.”

“May,” Peter said weakly, pulling the sweatshirt down as far as he could, sitting cross-legged on his carpet, knowing that he looked every bit as helpless as he didn’t want to be.

His aunt stepped towards him and closed the door, keeping her eyes on him the whole time.  Peter knew his Aunt May as well as anybody in this world -- he’d lived with her for almost a decade, after all -- and he expected her to look pitying when he raised his eyes to meet her gaze.

Pity was there.  Of course it was.  Her nephew was on the floor, pink and splotchy and reeking of slick and half out of his mind.  But there was also determination on her face. And understanding. And love.

She knelt down next to him, slid one hand under his thighs and the other behind his back, and carefully scooted him towards the bed until his spine was resting against it.  He couldn’t help but balk as she pulled her hand out from under him.

“May, I’m...I can’t believe you...I’m covered in….”

“Like I’ve never touched fluids before, Peter,” she said matter-of-factly, and leaned over him to grab the box of tissues from the bedside stand.  She roughly wiped Peter’s slick off her hand and used the leftover bit of tissue to clean a little of the back of Peter’s thigh before tossing the crumpled paper aside.  “I’m a nurse. I guarantee you, I’ve seen it all, okay?”

Peter’s arms were still inside the sweatshirt.  He closed his eyes and let his head  _ thunk _ against the edge of the mattress.  “I’m a mess, though.”

A note of concern crept into Aunt May’s voice.  He felt her fingers brush his sweaty hair off his forehead before the back of hand rested against his clammy skin.  “Are you in a lot of pain?”

There was no need to take a mental stock of his body.  Every nerve end was aching. The empty space inside him seemed to have grown splinters, and every time he even thought about the fact that Wade wasn’t here, those splinters grew sharper.  “I...yeah, it hurts.”

Peter could feel May’s heartbeat next to him, calm and constant.  It almost let him focus, almost let him block out the other sensory input.  He turned and pressed his forehead into her shoulder.

“It’s all right, Peter.  Shhh, it’s all right.”

Her arm slid between his back and the bed, and her cheek rested on his hair, and then she was holding him, firmly, in her arms.

It didn’t make the pain go away.  But for a moment, all he could hear was his aunt’s heartbeat.   _ Thump thump. _  It’s okay.   _ Thump thump _ .  You’ll survive.   _ Thump thump. _  You’re going to be safe.   _ Thump thump. _  I’m here.

Peter’s fingers fisted in Aunt May’s sleeve.  “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“I wouldn’t be such a hassle if I weren’t an Omega.”  The words pushed painfully around the lump growing in Peter’s throat.

Aunt May’s arms tightened around him, and she turned her face so her lips were in his hair.  “Listen to me, Peter Parker. You are the best thing in my life. And I don’t care if you’re an Alpha, or a Beta, or an Omega, or an alien, or a wizard, or a superhero.  You are my nephew and I love you. And I’m always going to be here for you, no matter what.”

_ Thump thump. _  I love you.   _ Thump thump. _  I love you.   _ Thump thump. _  I love you.

“Love you too, May.”

Peter swallowed the lump in his throat.  He could only hear his aunt’s heartbeat. 

Then the window slid open.

The sounds of Queens spilled into his bedroom, along with the overwhelming scent of an Alpha.  Inside him, the empty space clenched hard, and Peter tipped forward, ducking his face between his knees as the pheromones overwhelmed him.  Fresh precum dripped out of him. May let go of his shoulders.

“Peter, are you okay?”

God, he was shaking.  It was hard not to choke on a sob as the pheromones dug into his senses and chased his logic out of his head.  “May, I...I love you, but I….”

Her hand pressed on the back of his shoulder blades for a long moment.  “I’ll be in the other room, okay?” Then he felt her standing up next to him.

Wade finally spoke.  “Mrs. Parker.”

“Take care of him, Wade.”

The door to his room opened and closed, and now it was just Peter and Wade and he could smell Wade’s rut on the air.  Slick was pulsing out of him. He felt so, so hot.

“How are you holding up, baby boy?”

Peter lifted his head just enough to open his eyes and see Wade’s boots.  They were red and black. “You’re in your suit.” He craned his neck up higher to take in all of Deadpool.  “Why are you in your suit?”

Wade sighed and dug his thumbs under the bottom of his mask to pull it off; he tossed it onto the floor.  Then, slowly, the man crouched down towards Peter’s level. Every movement sent waves of pheromones at Peter.  His hand twitched between his legs. “You didn’t answer my question, Spidey,” Wade said lowly, in a voice that made Peter’s spine shiver.  “I wanted to know how you’re holding up.”

The pheromones were hot and heady in Peter’s mind.  He closed his eyes and pressed his face back down between his knees, into the fabric of Wade’s sweatshirt.  “I’m not.” The answer came out muffled.

“Didn’t hear that, baby boy.”

Peter choked out his answer.  “I’m not holding up, Wade.” Now that the room was full of pheromones again, Peter couldn’t contain his need.  His hands fumbled around in the sweatshirt until finally, one of them found his leaking cock. “If I don’t come soon, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”  He slid his fist down the length of his dick, firmly, and the resulting lurch of pleasure made him bite his lip so hard that he almost tasted blood.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Wade cooed, and his big hands grabbed Peter’s shoulders and forced him into a straight-backed position.  “What did I say about getting yourself off? Let me take care of you, Petey.”

The touch alone, even though it was on Peter’s shoulders, made him feel like he might blow his load.  God, he was so desperate, it was like his body was coming apart at the seams. The back of his head hit the mattress again.  “God. Wade.  _ Please _ ,” he breathed.  His hand ran one more stroke down his shaft, bringing his orgasm straight to the base of his cock.  “I --  _ fuck _ \-- I’m gonna….”

Before he could get one more stroke in, though, Wade ripped the sweatshirt off over Peter’s head and grabbed Peter’s now-exposed arms.  In an instant, Peter was pinned back against the side of the bed, panting as his cock bobbed, a half-second away from the point of no return.  “God DAMNIT,” Peter yelled in frustration. His arms shook, his extra strength threatening to force Wade away and so he could finish himself.

“Baby boy,” Wade said in a dark voice, “I know you want to come.  So I’m going to tell you how to do it. When I let go of you, you’re going to stand up, get onto the bed, and let your knees fall open for me.  Then you’re going to hold the bedpost. And you’re not going to let go until I say you can.”

Peter blinked his eyes open.  Wade’s face was six inches from his own, those brown eyes staring at him.  “Can you do that for me, baby boy?”

There was no other answer for that low voice, the voice that made him shiver.  “Yes.”

 

____WADE

 

Peter was all pink and white; pale skin with sex splotches up his chest and neck and a dark, dripping cock, as pretty as a painting as he got up onto the bed.  Wade watched as the teenager eyed the bedpost over his head and took hold with shaking hands. After a few unsteady breaths, the boy’s knees fell to the sides. It was all so, so perfect.

Except that there was a potential crisis happening in Manhattan.

It was unlike Wade to give up a chance to un-alive people, or at least to get his hands a little dirty, but here he was, stripping off his gloves and finding all the zippers and clasps on his suit.  Because as pressing as the situation could be in Manhattan, there was nothing more pressing than Petey at the moment. Everything about the kid read that he’d been in heat too long already. His flat stomach was hitching up and down in uneven breaths, distressed.

And of course, Wade’s rut was nothing to shake a stick at, either.  His erection had flagged on the jaunt out to Weasel’s grandma’s place, but as soon as he’d come up under Peter’s fire escape, he’d been able to smell the desperate clean spice that was coming down from the window.  As he’d been climbing up, he’d even seen one of Spidey’s neighbors, sitting in his apartment, slap himself in the face to ignore the pheromones.

All the same, the knowledge that somebody -- Stark even -- might be dying at the moment seemed determined to prevent Wade from fully enjoying this beautiful occasion.  It was only the fact that Wade was about to fuck Peter, his baby boy, that his rut stayed strong in his head. If this had been some random Omega hooker, he’d probably have lost his erection due to the distraction.

{ _ But there is no losing our hard-on with THAT fine piece laid out in front of us, _ } Yellow crooned.

[ _ Look, I don’t mean to rush this wonderful moment, but the faster you fuck the kid, the faster he gets relief and the faster we get to find out if Hydra is brutally murdering Stark. _ ]

“Killjoy,” Wade muttered under his breath as he pushed his suit down past his waist.

Peter’s eyes squinted open.  “What did you say?” For a second, the kid looked at Wade’s face, then his eyes swung down to Wade’s cock, which was now out.  “Oh...my God.” Peter squeezed his eyes shut again and bucked his hips upward. “Get over here.”

“Can do, baby boy.  Just a second.” Wade kicked off his boots and stepped out of the pile of stiff material; his weapons clanged together down by his feet.  He had to hold himself back just slightly as he dug his knee into the bed and swung his other leg over the boy under him. Peter shivered as Wade bent low.  “This okay? This what you want, Petey?”

An overwhelmed, choking noise came out of Peter’s throat.  “God, yes,” he managed. His Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed.  “Ah, fuck, Wade,  _ please _ , I’m losing it here…”

Every inch of Peter’s smooth skin was covered in goosebumps.  His muscles strained and the bedpost above his head groaned. Pulsing heat was coming from the kid’s whole pelvic region; the smell of slick was heady and overwhelming and  _ goddamnit _ , Wade couldn’t keep Stark out of his head.

“What’s wrong?” Peter whined, looking up at Wade under those dark lashes.  “Don’t you -- ” 

Wade clapped his hand over Peter’s mouth.  “Baby boy, if you say something cliche like  _ don’t you want to _ I’m going to make sure I fuck you so hard you never,  _ ever _ think something so damn laughable again.”  He felt Peter’s mouth forming a response under his palm and took his hand back.

Of course, the kid cracked a breathless smile.  “Well, then,  _ don’t you want to? _ ”

“You’re asking for it, now.”

“No shit.  I’ve been asking for it for the last forty minutes!”

Wade ducked his chin so he wouldn’t laugh.  Instead, he licked a strip of Peter’s skin from his bottom rib all the way up to his clavicle.  Under his hip, he could feel the warmth of Peter’s precum painting lines against him. At the top, he teased Peter’s neck with his teeth.

The low groan that came out of the Omega under him was better than anything -- _ anything _ \-- Wade had ever heard in porn.  And damnit, it didn’t matter if Stark was in danger right now.  If fate made him choose a hundred times between saving Iron Ass’s life or fucking Peter Parker, he’d choose Peter every time.

With his teeth, Wade continued to mouth distracting patterns into Peter’s neck, right near one of the scent glands.  In response, Peter had turned his head to the side, giving into the submissive impulses Wade knew the kid must be experiencing.  All the while, Wade moved his hand down between Peter’s open legs. He gingerly ran his knuckles down the fleshy back of Peter’s thigh before finding the slick-soaked entrance of his baby boy and pressing one fingertip against it.

Spidey had gone stiff beneath him.  “Breathe, baby boy,” Wade whispered as he carefully pushed on the tight skin.  There was so much slick that he barely felt any friction. In a second, he was down to his third knuckle.  Peter gasped in a breath and let it out with a sob.

Wade could literally  _ feel _ the slick pulsing out of Peter’s body.  He pulled out his finger and pressed two more in right away; his fingertips slipped over the cluster of nerves that all Omegas had and went straight to Peter’s prostate, pressing down hard.

The wood of the bedpost lurched as Peter convulsed.  Wade still had his face buried in Peter’s neck, and the kid’s bicep was pressing against the back of Wade’s skull painfully, but it was worth it.  Wade sucked a small circle of Peter’s skin into his mouth and worked it with his teeth, breaking blood vessels under the skin so it would show as a purplish hickey, at least for an hour or two.  At the same time, he allowed his fingers to go between pressing on Peter’s prostate and rubbing the super-sensitive cluster of nerves. The sounds Peter was making were escalating quickly.

[ _ What if that gas isn’t a specialized gas the way that the ones in Canada seemed to be?  What if that gas is poisoning civilians right now? _ ]

Jesus fucking Christ.

He needed to stop thinking about whatever shit was going down in Manhattan and White box needed to shut up right now.

[ _ I’m just saying what you’re thinking. _ ]

{ _ Can you STOP saying it?  We’re about to get our dick wet and all you can think about is Hydra?  You sick bastard. _ }

Wade groaned in frustration.  By the pulse of new slick and the responding moan from Peter, Wade could tell that the kid had misunderstood it to be a sexy groan.  Which, wasn’t a bad thing.

{ _ Let’s get a condom on and fuck Spidey NOW, and we’ll worry about Hydra LATER.  See? I’m smart. I can prioritize shit. _ }

[ _ But is Peter really the priority here, when there are so many lives that are maybe on the line? _ ]

Wade pulled his fingers out of Peter without any warning and bent over to grab one of the condoms out of the box on the floor.  Peter was shaking, almost violently, his knees drawn up and his chest heaving. Under those lashes, Wade could see just a hint of the brown eyes, watching Wade slide the condom over his cock.  The muscles in Peter’s face weakened just a little: relief that he was finally about to get a reprieve from the pain he must be going through.

“Yes,” Wade said adamantly, in response to White box.  “Yes. Yes. Yes.” He pushed his body down so his hips were lined up.  “Yes.” God, did  _ he _ sound that breathless?  His rut  _ was _ getting painful.  “Yes, yes,  _ yes. _ ”

And then he was inside his baby boy, and the look of utter peace on Peter’s face was just too much.

Wade pressed his mouth back to Peter’s skin, nipping and teasing tracks of pink and purple bruises along the boy’s collarbone.  With each one, Peter’s vocalization was sublime. And, all the while, Wade was building up speed with his thrusts. There was no crime in wanting to nut early this time.  Not with all the distractions and shit going down. Not with how long Peter had waited.

But even as Wade reached a breakneck pace, and even as Peter’s wavering voice cracked with use, his rut just didn’t want to move downward.  It was sitting, aching, in his lower belly, but didn’t seem to be able to concentrate down to his dick, where it needed to be for knotting.

What the fuck?

Wade kept drilling, his hands pressed hard into the mattress, his mouth biting Peter now with a vengeance.  Peter’s cock was exquisitely hard under him, and he knew that the teenager could have come again a hundred times by his own hand, but he needed Wade’s knot to truly come, to get relief.  So  _ why _ couldn’t he  _ fucking _ knot?

Maybe he’d come too hard early, in the taxi?  No, he’d come hard before, during Peter’s other heats, and been able to rebound fast.  Maybe he wasn’t getting enough of Peter’s pheromones to really set him off? No, that certainly wasn’t the case.  The boy was laid out under him like a platter, all of his scent glands exposed.

Maybe Tony was dead or dying, up in his penthouse.

The whimper that escaped Wade’s throat was definitely  _ not _ sexy.  He unclamped his teeth from Peter’s collarbone and stared down at the bite marks there, oozing slightly.  Peter’s eyes fluttered open, confusion crossing his face. “Wade?” he breathed. “Wade, what’s wrong?”

“Petey, nothing -- ”

“Don’t fuck with me, Wade,” Peter said, turning to look at Deadpool straight-on.  “Something is not right. I can tell. What is going on?”

{ _ See what you did, White?!  Now we can’t even have sex properly! _ }

Wade wiped sweat off his forehead.  He’d been hoping to get through this without telling Peter about the situation, because deep down, he knew that Peter would never allow himself to relax and get fucked while Tony Stark, his mentor and idol, was in danger.  But now the kid was onto him. Maybe it was better to just put off the sex, go and take care of the situation, and --

Pain broke Peter’s features.  One of the hands that had so far been obediently glued to the bedpost flew down to just below his navel and pressed, white-knuckled, against the muscles.  “Fuck,  _ fuck _ , Wade, don’t pull out just yet.”

Wade looked down.  Without realizing it, he’d leaned back, and his cock was already three-fourths of the way out of Peter.  In its absence, the painful emptiness that Peter described must have come flooding back.

There was no way that Wade could abandon this kid and go fight off Hydra, or whatever was going on.  Nobody had fewer morals than Wade, and yet that would be an unforgivable offense. As in, he could never forgive himself if he left Peter to sit here for what could be several hours, feeling as though his little Omega body were being devoured from the inside.

That settled it.

“Baby boy, believe me when I say that there is something going on, and it might have me in my head a little bit.  But it doesn’t concern you or me right now. The only thing I want you to be concerned with is letting me help you find relief.”

Peter’s hand was still pressed to his abdomen.  “Is someone in trouble?”

“Baby boy.”

“Is it something with the Avengers?”

Goddamnit.  “Baby boy,” Wade growled, allowing his voice to drop low.  The pitch made Peter’s eyelids sink shut. “Listen to me. You don’t need to worry about the issue.  In fact, there’s nothing you or I could do about it at this moment.” He could feel Peter’s body giving in to the Alpha tone.  He hated putting on a commanding voice, because he knew that it accessed the Omega part of Peter that wanted to obey, and Wade liked the teenager to be his feisty self.  But now, he just needed Peter to trust him. Judging by the way the kid’s head had fallen to the side again, his neck open and bruised, it was working.

“I’m going to pull out of you, Petey, in just a moment.  When I’m out, I want you to flip over onto your stomach and tuck your hands under your chest.  Then I’m going to put my dick back in your ass, I’m going to knot you because you’re the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, you’re going to come as hard as you’ve ever come before because I’m an idiot and made you wait, and then I’m going to tell you everything you want to know.  Okay?”

Peter was breathing shallowly, neck still wide open, muscles trembling but submissive.  He gave a small nod.

“Okay.  I’m pulling out now.”

The moment he was free, Wade scooted back, allowing for Peter to move, and, after a few deliberate breaths, he did what Wade had told him to do.  When he’d settled onto his front, his ass up and completely shiny with slick, arms tucked under him, Wade nudged Peter’s knees together and straddled him before pressing his cock back against Peter’s slippery entrance.  

“What are you thinking about, baby boy?” Wade asked, keeping his voice low in a way that demanded an answer.

“A few things,” Peter replied honestly.

“I want you to try to keep your focus on me.  Try to think only about how it feels good. How close you’re getting.  Think of those things.”

Peter’s nod was Wade’s cue.  He bent low over Peter, covering the boy under him.  He was heavy, but Peter was strong enough to take it.  The weight would be comforting, boxing Peter in and keeping him safe.  At the same time, Wade pressed his hips forward, inching into Peter’s ass, bit by bit.  Fuck, he was tight in this position.

Wade’s face was near Peter’s.  He brought his arms up and over, to create a sort of cage around the boy, and while his knees were digging into the mattress, he allowed his ankles and feet to press down on top of Petey’s ankles.  Any part of Peter that could be covered was covered. Wade pulled out only an inch and pushed back in, fervently.

“I know you don’t like to go slow in heat, baby boy.  But I think right now that’s going to be just the ticket.  Keep your mind off that emptiness, love. It doesn’t exist.  The only thing that exists is you, and me, and the fact that I’m going to keep you safe forever and ever.”

Peter sighed, his breath humid and staying within the confines of Wade’s arms.  “Yes.” His voice was soft, submissive.

Wade’s thrusts were equally soft.  Rather than pull out entirely and force Peter to feel the loneliness that plagued him, Wade rolled his hips, only bringing them out by an inch or two and then pressing deeply back inside, as though his whole body could fit into Peter’s.  

This was everything.  This was all he ever wanted to think about.  Peter’s body, pliant under him, soft and feeling safe, while Wade worshipped him.  It didn’t matter what else was going on in the world. It didn’t matter who lived and who died, as long as he made Peter feel safe, and whole, and wanted, and loved.

His rut was hot, sitting low in his belly.  White box was silent.

“Wade,” Peter whispered.

“Yeah, baby boy?”

“I kind of wish you didn’t have a condom on.”

It was so quietly said, so muffled by Wade’s body over the kid, that Wade wasn’t sure he heard right.  “What did you say?”

Peter breathed a chuckle under him.  “I said, I kind of wish you didn’t have a condom on.  I know what I said about having your baby before, that it was a bad idea, but...I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have put one in me.”

Oh Jesus.

“Petey, are you just saying that?  Because that’s cruel, baby boy.”

“I mean it.  The idea of you coming inside me and just...our biology working together.  I mean, the science is already fascinating,” he acknowledged, “but I know I want it someday, Wade, because it makes me so hard to think about it….”

Fucking fuck.  Wade’s rut burned into his dick, as if he’d thrown a lever and started a ride that he couldn’t get off.  “Christ, Petey, you don’t know what that does to me.”

Peter was breathing hotly, panting under him, his breath so wet that it was almost making condensation on Wade’s skin.  “I do know, Wade, because I can feel you starting to... _ God _ …”

Wade groaned; Peter could feel the knot that was forming quickly at the base of Wade’s cock.  It was mind-blowingly fast, expanding at what must have been twice the rate as normal. Instead of thrusting until he couldn’t anymore, Wade simply held onto Peter tightly, keeping his cock inside, allowing himself to enjoy the feeling of Peter’s muscles gripping around him as he grew.

“Wade, Wade, give me your hand.  Your fucking hand,” Peter said desperately, his voice at a pitch that meant he was about to come undone.  “I want to...I’m gonna…” Wade pulled his arm down so his hand was near Peter’s face.

His knot reached its full size, and he felt his body combust with wave after wave of sprawling heat.

Peter’s teeth closed down on his hand like the kid’s life depended on it, and his whole body shuddered underneath Wade, all of his muscles going taught with pleasure.  Wade could see the delicious flex under his skin; he reciprocated with a fierce bite to that spot just under the kid’s hairline. Instead of coming quietly, Peter made loud, fucked-out sounds through his teeth, obscene and audible enough that Wade couldn’t help but feel bad for the two women who were probably hearing everything in the living room.

For the first time, he felt a trickle of blood go down the back of his hand.  Peter had bitten down with such force that he’d actually made Wade bleed.

“What did I say, baby boy?” Wade managed after he let go of Peter’s neck.  “I told you that you’d come as hard as you ever have before.”

Peter was still breathing in a labored way, his eyes shut tight and his face pink and hot.  Wade couldn’t help but smile as he pushed himself up off the kid slightly to remove some of the weight.  Only after a gentle tug of his arm did Peter finally unhinge his jaw from around Wade’s hand and blink his eyes open.

{ _ God, that was enjoyable.  That was some of the best sex we’ve ever had. _ }

[ _ Glad we enjoyed it, _ ] White was saying grumpily.

{ _ Yeah, no thanks to you.  You tried to sabotage it all.  Getting us in our head like that. _ }

[ _ It’s good that we knotted and took care of Peter.  But it doesn’t change the fact that people might be DYING - _ ]

“Hey.”

Wade looked down at Peter.  “Hmm?”

“I said, yes, I came very hard.”  There was a sheepish grin on the teenager’s face.  “Sorry for the blood.”

Wade nodded at his hand.  “Look, it’s already closing up.  I heal fast as fuck, baby boy.”

Peter grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes.  “So, you said...after I came...that you’d tell me everything I want to know.”

“I said that, didn’t I?”

“You did.”  The kid breathed deeply, then pushed himself up a little.  Wade shifted back, but his knot was still held fast by Peter’s clenched muscles; Peter hissed and gripped the pillow.  “Ah, fuck.”

“Take it easy, baby boy.  I still need a minute to deflate here.”

“You still have to tell me what’s going on.”  Peter was twisted back at what should have been an impossible curve -- { _ Damn, he’s flexible _ } -- and was staring Wade down with those serious brown eyes under his mop of fuckable hair.  Wade met his eyes for a second before allowing his gaze to travel down Peter’s body. The kid was pink on the front from rubbing against the sheets, and of course the bed was plastered with white fluid that stuck to Peter’s abdomen.  Wade ran his finger through the cum on Peter’s skin and dragged it up the kid’s chest. “Don’t...don’t distract me,” Peter breathed.

[ _ Fucking tell him, Wade. _ ]

“Okay, but don’t you go shooting off like a rocket when I tell you.  I don’t want you to break my dick off.”

Peter rolled his eyes.  “Noted.”

Wade took a deep breath, preparing for the kid to fly off the handle.  “When I ran to my safe house to get condoms, I saw what we might describe as an... _ issue _ ...happening in Manhattan.”

The way Peter’s eyebrow cocked up was too cute for the situation.  “Issue? What kind of issue?”

“I think Hydra might be back, baby boy.  I saw a big cloud over Stark’s penthouse and --  _ Christ _ , wait, don’t pull -- ”

Thankfully Wade’s knot had shrunk just enough that when Peter scrambled to his feet, the knot yanked out of Peter with a filthy  _ pop _ instead of wrenching Wade forward or breaking something.  Peter was halfway across the room in a flash; he grabbed some boxers out of the laundry bin and began wiping slick and cum off himself.

“Damn, baby boy, that could have hurt.”

Peter shot him a look.  “Get cleaned up.”

Wade sighed, but he gently pulled the condom off and tied it up before tossing it in the trash can.  “Look, I know you want to go charging downtown, but we need to stop and think about this logically. That’s my first rule as a mercenary.  Logistics.”

“Bullshit.  You go in guns blazing.”

“I never said that wasn’t PART of the logistics.  But let me talk, Petey. We don’t know what’s going down over there.  You’re in heat right now, which means you’ve got a few other things to worry about.  And we don’t even know that Iron Ass is in danger.”

Peter shook his head, scrubbing fluids off himself with little pomp and circumstance.  He tossed the boxers onto the floor and opened up his closet, where he’d lately stashed his fabric suit.

“Petey.  Listen to me -- ”

“Wade.”  Standing there naked, with his suit in his hand, Peter was staring at Deadpool.  “Do YOU think Mr. Stark is in danger? Deep down, do you?”

Fuck.  “I don’t know, Petey,” Wade lied.

“Come.  On. Tell me the goddamn truth -- ”

The bed groaned as Wade pushed himself to his feet.  He was taller than Peter by quite a bit, bigger than Peter, more dominant than Peter.  He could see the Omega part of Peter cause the kid to flinch just a millimeter at the sudden display of power; Peter looked like he was fighting the impulse to submit his neck, but he stopped meeting Wade’s eyes.

“You want the truth, Petey?  The truth is that yes, I think Stark could be in danger.  But the other truth is that I see exactly how this is going to play out if you go trying to save the day.  We’re going to get there, you’re going to be fucking heroic and badass and things I love about you. But Hydra might one-up you.  Or you might hit another heat wave. Or you might fall a million feet from Stark’s goddamn skyscraper. And I don’t want you to die.”  Wade folded his arms over his bare chest, over the scars littering his body. “I’m too fucking selfish, and I don’t want you to die.”

Peter still wasn’t meeting Wade’s eyes, but his pinkish hue seemed to have changed from post-sex to a little bit angry.  “It’s not your decision, Wade.”

“You’re my Omega.  I want to protect you.”

“And I like it when you make me feel safe and protected, but I’m not  _ your _ Omega yet.  And even if I was, I’m not  _ your _ property.  You can’t just control me.”

[ _ He sounds like a teenager. _ ]

{ _ Use your Alpha voice.  You know he’ll submit to you.  He cares about you and he wants to please you.  You could have him in the palm of your hand. _ }

“No,” Wade said, both to the boxes and to Peter.  “No, I can’t.” He didn’t see how this was going to work out, how he could convince Peter to stay.  But the last thing he wanted was to force Peter or use Peter’s affection for Wade against him.

“I’m Spider-Man, Wade, and I’ve been Spider-Man since I was fifteen.  And this,” he gestured between himself and Wade, “isn’t going to change that.  You know that. Being Spider-Man is part of who I am.”

“But so is being an Omega!” Wade groaned.  “And right now, you’re in heat! You  _ know _ how dangerous that is!  And we don’t even know what else might have been wrong with that regulator you took.  Please, I am begging you, Peter. Let me go sort it out, and just stay here where I know that even if you jack yourself off fifty times before I get back, you’re at least not dying somewhere in the street.”

The suit was still in Peter’s hand, but now, even though Peter’s head was lowered, Wade could see a trembling lip.  A moment later, Peter let the suit fall to the floor and buried his face in his hands.

“I hate this,” he choked.  “I hate being an Omega.”

Wade watched tears fall through Peter’s fingers, down to the carpet between the kid’s feet.  He wanted to hold Peter; he wished with all his energy that he could just tell Peter to come back to bed.  But there was no time. Even as Peter cried, standing there exposed and upset, Wade bent down and started pulling on his suit.

Peter only looked up when the katanas slid into their sheaths on his back.  His eyes were red and sad, but there was something else in them that Wade couldn’t quite place.

“I’ll be back as soon as possible, I swear.  I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to Stark.”  He reached down, grabbed his mask off the floor, and pulled it over his head before turning to the window, opening it, and stepping out onto the fire escape.

  
  


___PETER

 

Wade had been gone for about twenty seconds before Peter immediately wrenched open his drawer, pulled on a pair of boxers, and stepped into his suit.  It wasn’t the Iron Spider, which meant that he’d have to be careful about toxic gas. But it was all he had right now -- his other suit was in the bottom of his backpack, which was still with Ned.

He stood at the window for a second, trying to sense if Wade was still nearby.  There was no hint of him, though, not in Peter’s spider-sense. And the scent of Alpha was fading rapidly.

“Sorry, Wade,” Peter muttered to himself as he dug his fingers under the window and slid it open.  But there was no way in hell he was staying here.


	23. Your Sense Of Heroism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took a while, and it's a short one too (and not my favorite one that I've written, but heck). The last week and a half has been a massive challenge for me. My fiance and I are now doing pretty much two hours a night at the gym, and I've had packed weekends. But you guys don't need to hear about all that X)
> 
> I wanted to release this chapter and the next one back-to-back, but it didn't work out that way. Hopefully the next two chapters will come in rapid succession, though. I'm excited for you guys to read them.
> 
> This one gets a little tense, so summary is at the end.

 

____WADE

 

There was something to be said for having faster ways of travel.  Deadpool had been, well, Deadpool-ing for a while, but he still hadn’t come up with a mode of transportation that allowed him to get across the city as fast as the other guys in costumes.  Spidey wasn’t even the fastest, but the weblines did help him avoid the crowds on the street, and if there was clear space on the ground, Wade knew his baby boy could book it like nobody’s business.  He’d seen on at least one occasion when the kid outran a car.

{ _ And here we are, jogging like a normie. _ }

“Traffic is...too bad…to call Dopinder,” Wade puffed.  The duffel bag on his shoulder clattered around ominously as he made his way toward a subway station that had a direct transfer to where he needed to be.  People were looking at him as though he were a wild animal loose in the city; mothers were pulling their children aside as he jangled down the sidewalk.

{ _ You’d think that people would call the police on us.  It’s pretty clear we’re packing. _ }

“Have you,” Wade panted, “ _ ever _ seen a movie where the heroes got apprehended by the police?”

White sounded incredulous.  [ _ Like, all the time.  Literally the cops were Spider-Man’s biggest adversary in  _ The Amazing Spider-Man _. _ ]

“I mean...a good movie.  They did not...portray Spidey...well at all.”

The metro station came into view as Wade rounded the corner; he slowed to a walk and weaved past commuters on the steps coming home from the daily grind.  In the subway car, there was no room to sit, so he stood, trying not to make eye contact with an unsettlingly curious baby across the aisle.

When he emerged from underground, he immediately knew he was in the right place.

Most of the people on the street had their heads craned skyward.  Wade likewise turned his face up to the tops of the buildings towering overhead.  About a block down was the building that Stark lived in (and probably owned), and sure enough, the unnatural cloud was still billowing overhead, being whipped by the wind at the edges but never blown away.

[ _ There it is. _ ]

Wade turned his face back down toward the onlookers and people on the street.  The commotion all seemed to be aimed at the cloud, and there weren’t any ambulances on the scene -- so nobody had died due to the gas.  Maybe it was too high up to impact anyone down on the ground level. Maybe it wasn’t toxic at all.

“I swear to God, if this was just a Stark experiment gone wrong and he’s building a fucking weather machine, I might just murder the man,” Wade growled as he started pushing his way through the crowds.  It seemed like everybody in the fricking city was stopped on the street, pointing, staring, and taking selfies, of all things. God, the cloud wasn’t even a spaceship or anything. Wade passed by a group of teenagers who had probably just gotten out of the posh schools in the city.  Several of them were taking pictures on their phones; one brunette boy in a green hoodie and jeans was simply looking up at the cloud, hands shoved in his pockets, pensive.

Wade felt a tug in his chest as his thoughts flipped to Peter.  Peter, who was at home in his little Queens affordable housing, probably just waiting for another wave of heat to hit him.  Maybe the kid’s aunt had gotten him some food, or maybe his friend Ned had shown up with his backpack and the doctor was looking at the rest of the regulator samples.  In any case, he was safer there, as much as he probably struggled watching Wade leave.

“Why couldn’t I have left this up to Romanov or that Rhodey guy?”  Wade was approaching the base of the affected skyscraper. “Why didn’t I just stay wrapped up with Peter and leave this shit up to somebody else?”  Traffic was gridlocked on the street, so Wade didn’t even have to wait for the light to turn red before he jogged across the intersection. A few people honked at him, but he ignored them and turned toward the entrance.

Fuck.

A half-dozen unmarked black vans were double-parked along the street.  There weren’t any flashing lights, but Wade could guess that they weren’t regular cops anyway.  It was probably SHIELD at best, the FBI at worst. There were agents in plain clothes, milling about on the sidewalk, trying to look like civilians but failing expertly.  

[ _ Well, maybe the feds have already been able to extract Stark if he’s in trouble. _ ]

“Unlikely,” Wade answered pessimistically.  If Stark wasn’t the source of the cloud, and he had been in trouble but was already safe, he would have been flying around the premises in his gaudy getup, trying to solve the problem.  “I don’t see Iron Ass anywhere.”

Getting into the building looked damn-near impossible.  He’d been hoping that he’d come up with some way to enter on his little commute over from Queens, but nothing had come to him.  He’d been in the building exactly one time, and even though he knew which windows belonged to Stark’s penthouse, he wasn’t going to be able to suction-cup his way up the side of the building Ethan Hunt-style.  It was a little more than fifty floors, and the top five had to be engulfed in the cloud.

Of course, he wasn’t above going in the front door, but it was currently guarded by what looked to be around 15 plain-clothes agents.  If he was going in for a rescue mission, it would look pretty bad to un-alive any of them.

“Well, fuck.  I did not think this through very well.”

“So much for logistics, right, Deadpool?”

A splotch of webbing hit Wade square in the chest; before he had a second to even comprehend what was happening, the line went taut and jerked Wade off his feet and into the air.  He braced himself as he went hurtling toward the side of the building; a second later, he crashed through a window on the tenth or eleventh floor and tumbled through a bunch of spindly-legged tables in the sitting section of a coffee shop.

When he tried to stand, something in front of his chest  _ thunked _ against one of the coffee tables.  A shard of glass that was easily six inches long was sticking out of him.

“Oh, shit, sorry.”

Wade spun around.  Standing inside the window, framed by the sunlight bouncing off the glass of the building across the street, was Spidey.

Anger was not a foreign emotion to Wade, but he wasn’t quite sure he’d ever felt something like this before.  He wasn’t just angry; he was fucking furious. With his left hand, Wade reached up to the shard of glass and forcefully yanked it out of his muscle tissue before crushing it in his grip.  It was easy to ignore the pain when he felt so goddamn betrayed.

Spidey sheepishly ran a hand along the back of his head.  “I couldn’t just stay, you know I couldn’t stay. You really didn’t look behind you  _ at all _ as you were making your way here, by the way.  I mean, I even rode in the next subway car over, so if anything, it’s kind of your fault that I’m here…”  He dropped his hand. “I hope that heals in a second, because you’re really kind of gushing blood at the moment.”

There had never been a time when he’d cared less about how hurt he was, and he regularly didn’t give half a shit.  “Go the fuck home, Peter.”

Gunshots popped off from down on the street level; another pane of glass behind Spidey shattered.  Maybe the cops were firing at them. Peter took a casual step forward, barely paying attention to the commotion.  “Come on, Wade, you know I can’t just stay home….”

“I have never given less a fuck about your sense of heroism.  Go  _ back to Queens, now. _ ”

Peter’s mechanical suit eyes shivered shut for a moment, and Wade watched the boy’s head flinch to the side, exposing his neck submissively, before he realized that he’d used an Alpha tone of voice on him.  For fuck’s sake, the kid was still in heat, still even more susceptible to his hormones than usual.

This was all kinds of messed up.

Wade turned away from Peter, grabbed his duffel bag off the floor, and kicked over the table in front of him before he waded through the rest of the debris, heading toward the elevator as the hole in his chest closed up painfully.  At least he knew in theory about how he could access Stark’s penthouse now. As long as the elevators were working, it was all good.

When he punched the call button for the elevator, however, nothing lit up.

[ _ Of fucking course. _ ]

“Can’t we take the stairs?”  Peter was standing behind him again.

Wade gritted his teeth.  “Didn’t I give you a fucking command to go home?”

The kid folded his arms.  “Yeah, you did, and I resent you for it.”

“Well, clearly it didn’t work.”

“You think that, but I’m in extreme emotional turmoil right now.”  The way Peter said it was dry enough to be sarcasm, but at the same time, Wade could see the way that Peter’s fingers were gripping into his trembling muscles.  Was he fighting the urge to please Wade and obey him? A shot of guilt coupled with frustration crept into Wade’s chest. Somewhere under all the webbing gunk that was still stuck to him, tinged red by the blood he’d lost.

Wade swallowed and turned back toward the elevator.  “We could take the stairs to a certain point, but the only access to Stark’s penthouse is through an exclusive elevator.  If the power is cut to both elevators, then we’re fucked.”

“I appreciate that you’re saying ‘we’ now.”

Fucking hell.

Wade turned and grabbed Peter by the shoulders.  The kid flinched again, releasing his arms and letting them fall to his sides, loose and pliable and wanting to submit.  So much different than the way he’d been when Wade had tried to seduce him between his first and second heat, when Peter had clearly been in control of the situation, Omega or not.  Now, with Omega hormones saturating his body, in the middle of a heat, it must have been harder for Peter to resist giving into his submissive tendencies.

Or maybe the closer they got, the more they trusted and had affection for each other, the more Peter naturally wanted to please Wade.  Maybe the more Wade meant to Peter, the more powerless Peter would become to deny Wade anything.

Wade bent his face low and rested his forehead on Peter’s.  “Please, please, please go home, baby boy.”

Peter’s breathing was a little erratic, like he was fighting something inside.  “Don’t make me, Wade, please. You know I have to be here.”

“What have you got, thirty minutes before you go into another wave?  Petey, you’re going to end up in so much trouble here. You need to go.”

“I need to stay.”

Wade felt the frustration start to override the guilt in his chest.  “Baby boy -- ” he growled, warningly, dropping his voice low.

Peter’s shoulders shuddered.  “No, Wade, please -- ”

“ _ Go home _ ,” Wade said darkly, commandingly, putting everything in him into his tone.  “ _ Go home _ ,” he said again, repeating himself for good measure.  “ _ Go home.  Go home. Go home. _ ”

Peter twitched under Wade’s hands.  His breath had gone hard; he was starting to shake.  “Stop,” he whimpered, raising his hands to weakly hold onto Wade’s wrists.  “Stop, I have to...I have to….”

“ _ Go home. _ ”

A sob split Peter’s voice.  He shook his head against Wade’s forehead, trying to resist the innate desire to please Wade, an Alpha -- the closest thing to  _ his _ Alpha.  Guilt started bleeding back into Wade’s chest again, cooling the frustration as Peter trembled in his arms.  Was this sadistic? What gave him the right to tell Spider-Man what he could and couldn’t do? And yet, the way Peter was shaking and crying only reminded him of what Peter would be reduced to anyway, in the next half-hour or so.  

This had to be done.

“ _ Go -- _ ”

Something whizzed into one of the busted-out windows and  _ clinked _ across the floor in the cafe, which was just ten feet from the elevator.  Wade lifted his head from Peter’s trembling body and looked over the boy to see what it was.  For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Then, Wade heard a slow hissing noise, and white clouds started billowing up from behind an overturned cafe chair -- a smoke grenade.

A half-second later, another  _ clinking _ noise echoed over the tile floor.  This time, it rolled to the place where the tile floor ended and met the carpeting near the elevators.  Wade could see the little device, sitting almost innocuously on the ground.

Definitely  _ not _ a smoke grenade.

A deafening bang and a blinding flash of light went off at the same time.  Wade stumbled backward, his right hand forming a death-grip on the fabric of Peter’s suit, and fell with his duffel bag into the door of the elevator.  Peter’s body weight landed against him too, the kid apparently too shocked to stay upright. Maybe fighting the Alpha command had interrupted his spidey-sense.

“Is it Hydra?” Peter choked, his arm wrapping around Wade’s waist.  Wade couldn’t see anything -- his eyes were still stunned from the flash of light -- and his ears were ringing.  But a simple smoke bomb and a flash grenade weren’t the work of Hydra, surely. 

“I think it’s the feds, baby boy,” Wade managed.  He couldn’t even see where the stairwell was. “They didn’t like us busting into the building without their permission.”

Peter’s hand was now gripping the back of Wade’s suit just as hard as Wade was gripping Peter.  “I can hear them outside the window,” the kid choked, his voice sounding weak. “What do we do?”

“Not a lot of options, baby boy.  Hang onto me.” Wade pushed himself and Peter away from the elevator doors just enough so that he could turn around and wrench the doors open.  They gave relatively easily -- behind them was dead space. The elevator was on another floor, somewhere.

Now even Wade could hear the agents, some of whom were probably grappling up to the broken windows to accost and arrest Deadpool and Spider-Man.  For a split-second, Wade considered pushing Peter off him and letting the feds catch the kid. Then, at least, he’d be safe while Wade went to finish the mission.

But they’d also soon find out that Spider-Man was Peter Parker.  And that Spider-Man, AKA Peter Parker, was an Omega. And the rest of New York City would probably follow soon after.  If Wade cared about Peter at all, that wasn’t an option.

Instead, Wade held the door open with his foot, grabbed Peter’s wrist, and double-tapped against the web mechanism on the kid’s palm.  He heard and felt a line of webbing whirring out of the suit; Wade grabbed the sticky fibers, and, maintaining his grip on Spidey, took a step of faith into the dead space of the elevator shaft as the doors bounced shut behind them.

For a split-second, Wade felt his heart plummet as they fell.  Then, the web jerked in his hand, and they swung in a sort of short-lived pendulum motion until Wade slammed into the concrete wall.  Peter slipped a millimeter and scrambled to hold on; Wade’s duffel bang jangled around, hanging by a strap from Wade’s elbow.

{ _ Jesus, that actually worked. _ }

“All right, Spidey?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Wade tried to breathe evenly through his nose as the ringing in his ears slowly dissipated.  There was no way in hell his eyes were going to adjust to the nonexistent lighting in the elevator shaft, but the least he could do was try to use as many senses as possible.  When he could finally hear Peter’s shaky breathing next to him, Wade assessed the situation.

They were hanging somewhere below the tenth or eleventh floor.  The web was likely clinging to the concrete wall, so it was impossible to tell where the elevator was.  The only access points to the private elevator to Stark’s penthouse were on the first floor, and maybe two more floors on the building, plus the floor that the penthouse was actually on.  Before, Wade had simply busted into the elevator from the first floor by skirting the personnel and basically hotwiring the security systems in place (they weren’t Stark tech so it wasn’t too hard).

This was going to be a little more difficult.

“I’m going to need my other hand, Spidey, so I’m going to let go.”

Peter clung harder to Wade.  After a moment of adjustment, Wade released Peter’s shoulder and reached overhead to grab the web fibers with his other hand.  He was definitely strong enough to climb using just his arms, and probably could even carry Peter’s extra 140 (or so) pounds. Certainly, his healing factor meant he could do it longer than normal people could, too.  But he  _ did _ get tired; the chances of him trying to climb webbing all the way up to the top of the shaft were pretty slim.

“Here,” Peter said weakly.  “I’ll hold onto the wall, and you climb onto my back.  It’ll work better that way. I’ve never met someone who can climb my webs as well as I can.”

And suddenly Peter wasn’t holding him anymore.  Wade stuck out his right hand blindly, looking for the kid, and found him a foot away, the muscles in his back tight with the effort of clinging to the concrete.  “Petey, I weigh a lot more than you.”

“I have super strength.”  The way Peter was talking didn’t indicate it, though.  He sounded exhausted, small, and unsure.

“You sure you’re okay?”  Wade gripped Peter’s shoulder again and realized that the boy was trembling still.

Peter took in a ragged breath.  “Wade, I think you and I both know that I’m in this now.  There’s no turning back. So... _ please _ , will you tell me to stay?  I...I can’t keep fighting this.  This urge to turn tail and run, because you told me to.  Please take it back.”

Wade swallowed.  “I want to protect you, baby boy.”

The sound of Peter’s breathing was heartbreaking.  Every few harsh breaths, there was a sniffle, like Peter was still crying.  “I want to protect you, too. And Mr. Stark. And I can’t do that from home.  Please, Wade, I just want to make you happy, but I have to do this.” There was another desperate inhale.  “This is killing me. Please. Take it back.”

“Okay, okay.”  Wade squeezed Peter’s shoulder and cleared his throat.  “Stay with me. You don’t have to go home. Do whatever you want.”  He’d dropped his voice into the low, Alpha register that he knew Peter couldn’t resist, and sure enough, he felt Peter shivering underneath his hand in response.  “Just please, try not to get killed, okay?”

Peter took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Yes,” he breathed, and there was audible relief in his voice.  

Wade couldn’t see his baby boy, but he suddenly desperately wanted to.  He wanted to see Peter’s beautiful face, his fuckable hair, and his brown, wide eyes.

“I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have tried to control you.  I was just afraid.”

“I know.  But it was a fucking dick move.”  Peter’s voice was stern, but not angry.  “Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t, I swear.  It’s just that if I see you get hurt, baby boy, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I know, Wade.”  Peter took in another deep breath, and Wade felt a tentative hand on his chest.  “And I don’t know what I’ll do if  _ you _ get hurt.  I...I love you.”

God, those words.  There was nothing sweeter that ever came out of Petey’s mouth than those gorgeous words.

Wade opened and closed his mouth.  “I love you, too.”

The hand on his chest disappeared.  “Okay, now, get on my back.”

“Mmm, baby boy, I’d love to.”

Wade moved his grip to Peter’s far shoulder and held fast as he shifted his weight off the webbing.  As soon as he was entirely situated, his legs crossed around Peter’s narrow hips, the kid started climbing.  There was no way Wade could see where they were going, but he knew Peter could sense any obstacles in the way.  

“Do you see the elevator?”

“I think it’s below us.  I don’t feel it up ahead.  How many floors do we have to go?”

Wade counted in his head.  “If I recall, it’s 53 floors total, so I’m guessing we’ll have to get off around 20 floors up to see if there’s private elevator access there.  Otherwise, I don’t know. We could go all the way to the 52nd floor and figure out a way to blast a hole in the ceiling to get in.”

“No problem.  This is far less scary than the mission in Canada.”  Peter sounded ten times more at-ease now that Wade had taken away his Alpha command.  “I don’t know why, but I always end up in elevator shafts somehow.”

“Lazy writing, probably.”

They kept ascending, Peter easily covering distance while Wade clung to his back.  After a minute or two, they stopped, and Wade could feel Peter’s head craning around to try to sense where they were.  “I think this is the thirtieth floor.”

They deliberated for a moment how to check if there was private elevator access here; finally they settled on Peter shooting a web to just over the elevator doors, and Wade sloth-crawled along the fibers until he reached a place where he could force the doors open, pop out, and check.

It only took him a second to see that there was no access from this floor -- it was office space, and with so many workers probably milling around on a daily basis, it would be unrealistic to maintain enough security to guard the private elevator.  Access was more likely in a more secluded section of the building.

Wade forced the doors back open.  “No luck.”

“Seriously?  What are we going to do, check every floor?”

Wade gripped the web and made his way back to Peter before letting go.  “Maybe we should just get to the 52nd floor and I’ll launch you through the ceiling like a little spider-bomb.”

Peter laughed.  “Whatever you say.”

The last twenty-two floors seemed to stretch on and on.  

{ _ Is it just my imagination, or is the air getting thin in here? _ }

[ _ It’s your imagination. _ ]

Indeed, though, Wade’s chest did feel tight.  It took him several minutes to realize that it was because he was nervous.  He didn’t normally  _ get _ nervous before going into a fight or going on a mission.  Normally, it didn’t matter if he got shot or if he got fucked in some way.  He’d just heal up or wake up a few hours later, pretty much as good as new (except with cancer).  Now, though, he was scared shitless. Peter wasn’t immortal. Peter could get hurt -- seriously hurt.  He could die. And sure, Wade trusted Peter when he was out on a normal patrol. But these weren’t normal baddies, and Peter wasn’t in a normal state.

Wade’s arms tightened around Peter’s chest.  If the kid noticed, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he murmured, without even a sign of physical exertion in his voice, “We’ve got about five floors to go.”

“So let’s talk strategy, Spidey, since we didn’t get to that before,” Wade responded, settling his chin nicely in the groove of Peter’s neck.

“I thought you were going to chuck me through the ceiling like a ‘spider-bomb’?”

Wade scoffed.  “Well, that’s one plan.  But we don’t even know what’s up with Stark.  Maybe he’s tied to a chair or maybe he’s got a gun to his head or maybe he’s halfway through turning into a giant cockroach.  I mean, this is Hydra we’re talking about.”

Peter kept his pace; they were approaching the 52nd floor.  “Speaking of Hydra...do you think they took captives?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, have you seen anyone in the building?”

“No, but they tend to evacuate these things, baby boy.”

Wade felt Peter shrug in his arms.  “Sure, maybe.” He sounded entirely unconvinced.  “We’re there.”

Wade twisted around in the dark to see if he could make out the elevator door, but he couldn’t.  “Fuck, we still didn’t talk about strategy.”

“We don’t have a lot of time.  How about if we just...wing it?”

“That’s a horrible idea, baby boy.”

“Got a better one you can come up with in the next thirty seconds?”

[ _ No fair.  He probably knows we don’t think well under pressure. _ ]

“Does that sound like me, baby boy?”

“Then let’s wing it.”

Wade felt Peter let go of the wall with one hand and  _ thwip _ a webline to the opposite side of the elevator shaft.  Just as he had before, Wade sloth-gripped his way across the line, trying not to think of the fact that there were fifty-one floors below him, and if he let go he would accelerate for a considerable number of them until he ultimately splatted on top of the elevator.

As soon as Wade reached the door, he heart Spidey nimbly jump from where he was; he landed next to Wade and clung there.  “Ready, Wade?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be, Petey-pie.”

Together, they dug their fingers into the crack between the doors and pulled them open.

[ _ Oh shit. _ ]

Wade’s jaw fell open.

The 52nd floor was clearly set up as a sort of gathering or reception space, with a massive open plan, a bar in the corner, and huge windows spanning from floor to ceiling overlooking what would have been impressive views of Manhattan, if it weren’t for the thick white cloud of gas swirling outside.  Everything was lavishly decorated, as though it was ready for a party at any time. It was probably where Stark entertained when he didn’t feel like opening up his penthouse to the public.

The decorating, however, wasn’t what made Wade feel sick to his stomach.

Strewn around the floor, lying down, and sitting propped against each other, were around two-hundred unconscious bodies, all dressed in business clothes and work attire.

Civilians.

In the middle of it all, sitting calmly in a single chair with a martini in his hand, was a slender man dressed in all black.  He wore a kind of tool belt, with various pockets and cartridges. Strapped to his leg was a handgun, and sitting casually in his lap was a shotgun.

Wade heard the minuscule gears in Peter’s mask eyepieces shift with recognition.

“If it isn’t Luka Johanneson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wade leaves Peter in Queens and makes his way to Manhattan to see why there's a possibly-toxic cloud hanging around Stark's penthouse. When he gets there, he realizes that there are federal agents outside, preventing him from breaking in...until Spidey swings by and launches them both into the tenth floor through a window. 
> 
> A verbal fight between Peter and Wade ensues, culminating in Wade trying to Alpha-command Peter into going home. Two grenades thwart his plans to get Peter out safely and they end up in the elevator shaft, where Wade finally releases Peter from the Alpha-command because Peter can't resist it any longer. They share "I love you"s when they realize all they want is to protect each other.
> 
> Of course, they make their way up the elevator shaft until they get to the 52nd floor (right under Stark's penthouse) and when they open it, they find none other than Luka Johanneson, surrounded by hundreds of unconscious hostage civilians. Oh snap.


	24. Engulfed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I proofread this once; hope it's not awful.
> 
> In all seriousness, this week has been CRAZY. Lots of stress at work, the gym, and in life, coupled with really achy hands. But I really wanted to get this fight in. Hopefully the next chapter will be up sooner than a whole week from now because there's KINDA a cliffhanger at the end of this chapter.
> 
> Summary at the end of the chapter if you're still skipping the stressful parts.

 

____WADE

 

{ _ Who the fuck is Luka Johanneson? _ }

“You know this guy, Spidey?” Wade muttered.  It certainly wasn’t one of Spider-Man’s regulars in his rogues gallery, but Wade couldn’t figure out how else Peter would be on a real-name basis with a man who clearly was such a maniac.

[ _ I mean...don’t flatter yourself.  He’s on a fuckbuddy basis with you, and you’re usually just as heavily armed. _ ]

{ _ Nuh-uh.  You heard Petey in the elevator.  He LOVES us. We’re not just fuckbuddies anymore. _ }

“Yeah, we’ve met,” Peter said darkly in response to Wade’s question.  “He’s the guy that tried to kill me in Canada.”

Wade whipped his head to look at Peter, whose mask lenses were still focused in on the baddie, now calmly sipping his martini.

{ _ Oh, we’re going to kill this son of a bitch, aren’t we?  He tried to hurt Spidey. _ }  Wade was on the same page as Yellow; he barely felt the fact that he drew his katanas until Peter put a hand on his shoulder.  

“And clearly,” Peter added his eyes scanning around the bodies in the room, “we need to address this situation with...the utmost respect.”

“Listen to the boy, Deadpool,” Johanneson called from his seat in the middle of the room.  He had a German accent, something that somewhat disappointed Wade. He’d have thought that Hydra would be more equal-opportunity these days.  Still, he could feel his blood practically boiling in his body. The man smirked. “This doesn’t have to be too messy.”

“What do you mean ‘too messy’?” Wade spat.

Johanneson shrugged.  “Well. I worked very hard to get all of these people in here.  It took some very  _ special _ tactics.  So it would be remiss of me not to take advantage of all the work I’ve done, should you push me too far.  We can’t let all these people go to waste.”

Peter visibly shuddered next to Wade.  It was impossible to tell if it was in response to what Johanneson was saying -- what he was  _ implying _ \-- or if Peter was trying to stave off another wave of heat.  Wade couldn’t help but think that it had better be the former -- if Peter was going into another wave of heat right now, it was all over.  Wade sheathed his katanas and went for his gun.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t just shoot you right now, Johannes-butt.”

The man simply shrugged again.  “I have all the cards.”

“I don’t see any cards in your hand,” Peter scoffed.  He turned to look at Deadpool in mock confusion. “Do you see any?  Because I don’t see any. Just a few guns and what looks like the world’s douchiest martini.”

Johanneson laughed.  It was an intimidating sound, something that made even Wade feel like ice had just dripped down the back of his suit.  “You want me to monologue? I can slide easily into the role of the stereotypical villain, if you’d like. Let me explain why I have the advantage in this situation.”  He held up his pale, long-fingered hand. “You don’t know the location or the state of Tony Stark. You don’t understand why I’ve come here today, or what weapons I may have at my disposal.”  He counted off fingers as he went. “This room is full of civilians, and I could kill any of them right now in at least seven different ways. And finally, you’re in no state to be fighting right now, Spider-Man.”

“Oh, really?” Peter shot back, and Wade was impressed by how little waver there was in his baby boy’s voice.  “What part of me is unfit to be fighting? My super strength? My superhuman reflexes? My spider-sense?” It was all a rouse -- obviously Hydra knew that Peter was an Omega, since they’d likely planted the faulty regulators -- but Peter was still playing his part well.  

To his credit, however, Johanneson was also playing his part.  The man smiled against the rim of his martini glass. “Of course, of course, all of those things are formidable.  And make you, Spider-Man, a formidable enemy. One of the reasons why you were a priority in our weaponized gas research -- one of the reasons why I was so thrilled to get you alone in our facility.”  The martini glass left his lips now, and the spare hand was fingering the black metal of the shotgun in his lap. “Of course, we hadn’t accounted for Stark’s technology protecting you. It became clear to us that if we were to minimize the interruptions to our operations, taking out the Avengers as a whole was important.  Taking out Tony Stark became...imperative.”

Wade could feel the energy coming off Peter next to him.  The kid was angry, coiled like a spring, but he was keeping his game face on, probably from years of practice fighting enemies.  It didn’t help to strike too early.

Johanneson leaned over and placed his nearly-empty martini glass on the ground before shifting the weight of his shotgun to one arm and standing up.  “We’ve also seen over the years, Spider-Man, how close you are with Stark. And your location in New York City meant that if we attempted our attack here, you would inevitably come swinging to the rescue to mess it all up.  With your impressive nanotechnology suit, you could be impervious to all of the work we’d done with weaponized gas. So it became clear that we’d need to go with another approach to combat your heroics. Enter the unguarded office of your doctor, a small diversion, and a laughable little lock between us and your heat regulating medication.”

“What did you put in there?” Peter demanded.  “What did you replace the heat regulator with?”

Johanneson gave a small smile again, then leaned his shotgun against the chair he’d been sitting on.  With hands raised in a show of harmlessness, he took a few steps toward Peter and Wade. “May I?”

“Honestly, if you come any closer, I think I’ll just blow your brains out,” Wade answered.  “I’ve got an itchy trigger finger.”

Johanneson gave a small bow of understanding.  “Just a few more steps, then. I won’t come within fifteen feet of you.”  Without waiting for permission, the man shuffled closer, then raised his hand to the collar of his black jacket.

Wade couldn’t miss the significant facial expression on the man as he pulled his collar to the side.

For a moment, nothing happened.

[ _ What is he doing? _ ]

{ _ Does he have like, a small tattoo we’re supposed to be looking at right now? _ }

[ _ Maybe pulling your collar is a threatening gesture in Germany?  We’ve been to Germany once, right? Do we know what this means? _ ]

Then, Wade heard the gears of Peter’s mask eyepieces turning again, and the kid closed his eyes with a shudder.

And Wade smelled it.  An incredibly strong Alpha scent, perceptible from this far away.

“So what?” Wade said, unable to keep the annoyance out of his voice.  “Spidey fights Alpha douches all the time. This doesn’t change anything.”

Luka Johanneson shrugged.  “I would guess that your friend wishes he was wearing Stark’s nanotechnology now, Deadpool.  My pheromones seem to be affecting him.”

Peter was starting to tremble slightly.  Then, though they were somewhat dampened by Peter’s spandex suit, more pheromones reached Wade’s noise.  Peter’s pheromones -- and they were sweet and heady. 

{ _ Wait.  Holy fuck.  Did just the SMELL of this asshole make Spidey go into another wave of heat? _ }

[ _ Okay, the party is over.  If Peter’s out of commission, we need to end this before someone gets hurt. _ ]

Wade palmed one of his handguns, strapped, much like Johanneson’s, to his thigh.  “I think I’m going to need to kill you now, Hydra guy. Tell us where Stark is so I can smoke you and we can all go home.”

Johanneson resituated his collar and raised his hands again, grinning.  “Jealous that I can do these things to your lover, Deadpool?”

_ {Oh fucking hell, I will END HIM. _ }

“I find it hard to be jealous of a guy who looks like he tried and failed to be cast in the role of a Bond villain.  And not a good Bond villain, either. You’re like a second-tier Gustav Graves from  _ Die Another Day _ .”

Luka chuckled, and fuck, that was getting tiresome.  “To answer your question, Spider-Man, I didn’t poison your regulators.  All I did was add some bonding hormone mixed with my DNA. Not enough to make you truly bond to me, of course -- injections are necessary for that, and for both parties, as your doctor understands, I’m sure.  But just enough so that during this heat, you may find me, and my scent, to be your biggest inconvenience.”

Wade’s jaw dropped.  “You fucking piece of shit.”  The handgun was out of his holster and pointed toward Johanneson before he even knew exactly what he was doing.  And the bastard simply cocked his head in response, as if questioning whether Wade really had the balls to do it.

Fuck that guy.

Wade smashed his finger against the trigger, and felt the delicious recoil shove the metal back into his waiting muscles.

Johanneson barely moved, barely visible from over the barrel of Wade’s handgun, but he did move, just a little.  Just his hand -- a flinch, like he could block the bullet from his face.

Wade paused, his heart thumping, holding his gun aloft in case it took two or three bullets; but he knew that he’d hit home.  He could sense it.

And yet Johanneson wasn’t going down.

Instead, the man simply lowered his hand -- the one that had moved -- and looked at it with some amount of curiosity before tilting his palm toward the ground.

A crumpled bullet clattered to the floor.

All that showed a bullet had even hit the man was a small red welt on his palm.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I may have some small enhancements of my own,” Johanneson said simply, and turned around.  “I’ll give you a moment to check up on Spider-Man before we continue. I think he needs  _ something _ right now.”  The man strode back to his chair, picked up the last swig of his martini, and sat down facing away from them, as if providing them with privacy.

Wade’s heart was pounding.  The guy was impervious to bullets.

He was so shocked that he was barely registering the degree to which Peter’s pheromones were swirling in the air.

He did, however, register Peter’s hand on his shoulder, gripping so hard that it hurt.

  
  
  


___PETER

 

He was in agony.

There was no other way to describe the amount of sheer need that was coursing through his body.  If Johanneson was telling the truth, and he’d been exposed to bonding hormone that would make him particularly want the man -- the feeling was horrifyingly strong.  It wasn’t so much that he was attracted to Johanneson mentally. He found even the sight of him abhorrent. But his body was yearning for some kind of conjugal connection.

**Peter, your heartrate is elevated and you’re showing signs of distress.  I recommend removing yourself from the situation as soon as possible,** Karen offered.

Peter gripped Wade’s shoulder hard.

Wade’s unarmed hand came up and grabbed Peter’s wrist, maybe to ground him to reality.  It was helping marginally, but there was nothing that could make him focus on anything other than the throbbing in his body.  Wade spoke weakly, so quietly that only Peter could hear. “You feelin’ pretty frisky, baby boy?” He wasn’t being flirty. He was worried.

“Something like that,” Peter managed through his grimace.  His mask hid his face, but he knew that his eyepieces were clamped shut.  The flush that was flooding up his skin had to be equal parts embarrassment and arousal.  “I can manage.”

“Spidey,” Wade breathed, and Peter felt a surge of appreciation for Wade avoiding his real name.  “You don’t have to. We’ll get you out of here.”

Peter’s fingers curled into Wade’s shoulder muscles.  “You can’t kill him with a gun. You can’t kill these civilians.  We need non-lethal options, and I’m your option. I need to be here.”  Peter forced himself to open his eyes. Wade’s mask swam into view and there were those unnerving, white eyes, looking at him with concern.

“Baby boy, sometimes you’re too good, you know that?”  The pain in Wade’s voice mingled with the pain in Peter’s body and he had to steel himself for a moment to avoid succumbing to tears.

“You’re good too, Deadpool.”

Suddenly, coupling with the clenching arousal flooding Peter’s body, his Spidey-sense ripped into his head and down the back of his neck.  Even though he wanted nothing more than to just curl up with Wade and let the man take the pain away, Peter allowed his muscles to react; he shoved Wade as hard as he could and used the momentum to propel himself backward into a handspring.  

A smattering of shotgun shell holes peppered the elevator door that they’d been standing in front of.  Luka Johanneson lowered the weapon with a strange, sick smile on his face.

“You using buckshot or some shit?” Wade spat, getting up from the ground.  “That’s playing dirty.”

Peter’s heart hammered in his chest, and the throbbing pulse was echoing in his head, his stomach, and his groin.  He’d landed on his feet, but not without some difficulty, some extra focus that he didn’t normally have to employ in a fight.  The throbbing in his body made him bend double for a moment. But only a moment. He had to keep it together, even if he could feel slick dampening the back of his legs.

“I think it’s beyond Hydra to play a clean game,” Johanneson replied curtly.  “But I’ve let you have your time to gather your thoughts. Haven’t I, Spider-Man?”  Peter felt his cheeks burning, but didn’t respond. Johanneson’s eyebrows raised at the lack of an answer.  “Haven’t I?” he repeated.

“I normally only say this to very special people in my life, but I think you should seriously consider leaning a red-hot poker against your stomach, right about  _ here _ ,” Wade said, demonstrating by nudging his abdomen with his handgun, “and then fall on it.  How does that sound?”

If Johanneson was annoyed by Wade, he didn’t show it.  Instead, he shrugged and grinned, his pale skin pulling back to reveal horribly straight teeth.  “If that’s your opinion, I shall toy with you no further.”

Peter swallowed hard, trying to hide the trembling in his voice.  “You’re going to kill us?”

“Not yet.”  Johanneson stepped in a wide circle, arms outstretched.  “I’ll let them give it a try first.” Then he lowered one arm, dug into his pocket, and pulled out what looked like a television remote.  His thumb landed on a button.

Suddenly, bluish gas erupted from the midst of various piles of people.  One cannister that was releasing its smoke with a slow  _ hiss _ was only a few feet to Peter’s right, sitting between the legs of a woman in work-friendly heels and a magenta powersuit.  Peter stumbled away from the gas, fear numbing his body’s need for a moment. But his Spidey-sense was quiet; this gas wasn’t a threat to him or Wade.

Instead, it was waking people up.  

The woman in the magenta pantsuit groaned to life in front of him.  Next to her, a half-dozen men and women in business apparel were tottering to their feet, looking ashen and disoriented.  Peter backed up several more steps, only stopping when he knocked into a very solid Wade. “Steady, baby boy,” Wade growled under his breath.  The mercenary’s hand on his upper arm made Peter’s eyelids flicker; he was pulsing with need and apprehension at the same time.

“What kind of gas is this, Karen?”

**The exact chemical structure isn’t in my database, but it appears that the gas is formulated using concentrated Alpha hormones.  In high doses, it could alter brain function or cause significant changes in behavior.**

Then, like a bad horror movie, the person nearest to Peter -- a man in his forties with a premature combover and a gray suit -- shook his head, as if clearing the fog away, and trained his focus on Peter and Wade.  He bared his teeth and snarled, animalistic, before lunging toward Peter with the kind of furious energy that Peter had seen countless times in zombie movies. Except these people weren’t dead, and he didn’t want to kill them, either.

“Oh shit.”  Peter dug his heel into the floor, ignoring the slick slipping out of him, and double-tapped the mechanism on his palm to shoot a gob of webbing at the man in the gray suit.  The webbing caught fast on the man’s dress shirt; Peter yanked him forward with as much strength as he could safely use without giving the man whiplash, then side-stepped the body flying towards him to pull the remainlng webline around the back of the man, tying his arms down to his body.  With his other hand, he shot a line of web to the ceiling and connected it instantly with the end of the previous thread; the man bungeed up into the air and out of the way, hanging by his torso.

“Damn, Spidey, that was slick,” Wade said fondly.

“Don’t say the word ‘slick’ right now,” Peter panted.  “One down, only like two hundred more to go.” His energy wasn’t going to last nearly as long as in a normal fight, he could tell.  His body was too compromised by his heat. He fought the urge to groan as his cock, swollen, rubbed roughly inside his suit.

Wade unsheathed his katanas.  “Or should you say, ‘one  _ up _ ’?  Get it?  Because he’s on the ceiling now?”

Peter dodged the woman in magenta, who had gotten her bearings and suddenly charged at him, just as the man in the suit had.  He webbed her ankles and pulled them out from under her before shooting a net of web fluid that trapped her to the wall near the elevator door.  He turned around and eyed Wade’s katanas. “You  _ cannot _ kill any of these people.  They don’t know what they’re doing.”

“I know that.  I just don’t exactly come prepared with plush weapons, baby boy.  It’s knives or bullets, and I figure the knives are a little more cuddly.”

“They’re dosed with aggressive Alpha hormones.  They won’t stop because you give them one cut. You have to restrain them somehow.”

The people stopped coming one by one; it seemed like the rest of the crowd had all fully woken up at once.  Peter crouched to the floor -- wincing at the fresh pulse of slick and unwavering need in his body -- and tried to let his instinct take over.  His instinct, and his spider-sense, were the things that often won the fight.

Unfortunately, his spider-instincts were being overrun by his Omega ones.  His mind only had one thought:  _ I need an Alpha right now.  I need relief. _  His insides twisted with emptiness.

Peter pulled in a breath, felt the tingling danger cascading down his neck, and started fighting.

It was the hardest fight he’d ever been in.  He still had to pull his punches to avoid killing anybody, but one punch was not enough to stop them.  It was likely that the gassed civilians couldn’t even feel pain like normal. Peter resorted to dodging and webbing.  The ceiling was too low to get much of an aerial advantage, but after a few minutes, he flung himself up to the top of a support beam, just to catch his breath.  Not only was he trying to restrain hundreds of people, but he was doing it with about half the energy as he should normally have. And Wade had nothing to restrain anybody, so he was simply fielding them toward Peter.

Peter clung to the beam, his heart pounding as people scrambled to try to climb up to him.  He was barely a few feet away from their grasping hands, but he allowed himself a moment to close his eyes and breathe.  Even the effort it took to hold himself up on the beam was intense; his muscles were all shaking. The heat between his legs was damp and made him feel weak.  

Somebody managed to grab onto the front of his suit; Peter opened his eyes, fisted the woman’s claw-like hand and twisted her grip off him before letting her fall a few feet to the floor among the group scrabbling to get to him.  She crumpled on her high heels but immediately flung her head back up to glare at him, nostrils flared.

“Oh my God, this sucks!” Wade called from across the room.  He was resorting to melee-style hand-to-hand combat. Obviously his training gave him an advantage, but it wasn’t much when he couldn’t use any weapons and there were dozens of people coming at him.

“Yeah, I think I’d have to agree with you there,” Peter panted.  “Keep sending them this way so I can web them up!”

Wade grunted with effort -- it sounded like someone landed a punch to his gut.  “I’m...trying!”

Peter ignored the clamboring hands underneath him and aimed his wrist at the group of civilians attacking Wade.  “Web grenade!” he shouted, and launched a tight ball of fluid that exploded as it hit the ground, covering at least a dozen people in webbing that they couldn’t break.  

A light blinked on his display, showing that his web fluid was low in both web-shooters.  Peter stuck one foot to a ceiling tile and resituated himself so that the support column was between his thighs, which were already trembling with effort, so he could take his hands off the column.  He hastily replaced his web fluid cartridges as a man in front of him made a lunge that brought his fingertips within two inches of Peter’s chest.

“We should have...come up with...a plan!”  Wade was breathing heavily and taking more and more punches that he was failing to block.  

As Peter replaced his second web cartridge, he smelled something heady and airy that made his brain fuzzy.  The pheromones quickened his heartbeat; more slick pulsed out of him as the emptiness inside him spasmed. Luka Johanneson was making his way through the mob, a devilish grin on his face.

“You’re fighting valiantly, Spider-Man.  Such a good boy. But maybe you’d like to stop?  Maybe you’d like a break?”

Peter clenched his thighs together harder -- both to grip the support column, and to push away the heat that was overwhelming him as Johanneson’s deep voice triggered the bonding hormones coursing through him.  “Nope, I’m good,” he managed, struggling to keep his tone light. The blinking notice in his display had gone out; Peter sent another web grenade into the crowd, taking down twenty people at once. “Gotta keep my head in the game.  But if you’ve got any Gatorade in those little cups they hand out at marathons, I wouldn’t say no. Or maybe some orange slices?”

Johanneson laughed.  “For all your gusto, you’re clearly no match when you’re in heat, boy.  Omegas are simply a weaker breed.”

Peter wanted to argue, but it seemed impossible. It was getting harder and harder to keep his body in check, and Peter couldn’t deny it.  He was exhausted; a stray hand attached to a burly barista caught hold of Peter’s suit sleeve and nearly jerked him off the column. “Man,  _ now _ I get it when people say I’m annoying in fights.  Dude, it’s time to either give up or shut up.” He tore his arm out of the barista’s grasp and shot off another web grenade; his fuzzy brain made him miss his target.  Only three people went down with it.

“It’s okay to give in, Spider-Man.  I know you’re tired. You could stop all of this now.   _ Stop fighting _ .”  With the last two words, Johanneson’s voice dropped low and commanding, and Peter felt the tone in his body.  He faltered; God, he just wanted to please the Alpha, the Alpha whose pheromones did crazy things to his body and brain….

“Oh FUCK no.”

There was the ring of several gunshots from somewhere to Peter’s right.  Despite their aggression, the half-crazed civilians scattered from the gunfire; Wade had managed not to hit anyone, except his target.

Johanneson flung his hands over his face again, and each bullet crumpled against his skin.  Yet Wade kept coming.

“NOBODY gets to tell Spidey what to fucking do,” Wade snapped, firing round after round at the man.  “Believe me, I tried.  _ You do you, Spidey. _ ”

The deafening  _ crack _ of each gunshot, coupled with Wade’s low Alpha tone, brought Peter back to his senses.  Taking advantage of the fleeing people, he brought them down in groups with rapid-fire webbing while Johanneson took shots to his body.  In a matter of seconds, he’d webbed down fifty, leaving a smattering of people left.

“Your bullets,” Johanneson grunted, hands still over his face, “won’t kill me!”

Wade had emptied both of his handguns.  He reached back for his katanas and took slicing blows at Johanneson, leaving red welts down his skin, though there wasn’t any blood.  “Just because I’m not killin’ ya doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy beating the shit out of you.”

Peter took a deep breath, ignoring how his muscles were screaming with effort, and twisted around to web down the last few dozen people.  Finally he got the last person, a twenty-something woman who was likely a custodial worker, judging by her clothes. She stuck fast to a table and struggled for a moment before surrendering like the other masses of webbed people.

“ENOUGH!”

The shrill German voice was dampened by the sheer number of people and amount of webbing in the room, but it was loud enough that it made Peter’s head hurt.  Johanneson was holding a gun in his hand, with his face, neck, hands, and presumably his body, peppered with red marks and welts from Wade’s assault. The gun was aimed at one of the windows leading outside, where the swirling white cloud was still blocking the view of Manhattan.

Wade laughed.  “Look dude, I don’t know if you know how this works, but we kind of beat you.  The next thing that tends to happen is, you tell us what we want to know, and then we promptly hand you over to the authorities for the good American judicial system to take care of you and probably lose your paperwork somewhere.”

Johanneson’s grin was gone.  He licked his lips, eyes wild like a cornered animal.  “It’s such a shame to kill you both, when you have such tenacity,” he said simply.  Then his finger squeezed the trigger.

Peter had never seen a window on a New York skyscraper shatter so readily.  It was as though the windows were from a hundred years ago. Instead of spidering into cracks like shatterproof glass should do, the window fell into massive shards that skittered onto the floor and dropped 52 floors outside to the pavement.  And the cloud that had been outside was suddenly inside the room.

Spider-sense ignited his brain.

**Peter, this gas contains the same substance that was present in the Canadian mission.  It poses a direct risk to your life, since you’re not in the Iron Spider suit.**

Something was suddenly over Peter’s mouth and nose.  He flailed, causing his weakened legs to let go of the support column they’d been clinging to; in a moment, he was on his back on the floor, looking up into the white eyes of Wade’s mask.

Wade.

“What are you doing?” Peter cried, reaching up to feel the gas mask that Wade had shoved over his face.  It was a techy respirator with a compact air-filtering system; it covered the lower half of his face with an air-tight seal.  Wade had been carrying around his duffel bag for a reason. 

“Lights out for me isn’t lights out forever, baby boy,” Wade answered.  Then the white gas flew over Peter’s vision and engulfed them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After realizing it's Luka Johanneson (the Hydra guy who tried to kill Peter in Canada) who is responsible for the cloud of gas around Tony Stark's penthouse, Peter and Wade get the guy to monologue a little about why he's doing this (basically, he realized that Tony Stark's tech could mess up Hydra's plan of weaponized gas development). It also turns out that Johanneson spiked Peter's regulators with not only heat inducers, but with bonding hormone containing Johanneson's own DNA, meaning that as Peter's new wave of heat hits, Johanneson is kind of irresistible.
> 
> Plus, Johanneson is impervious to bullets, as Wade finds out, so that's fun.
> 
> Johanneson triggers a gas that makes all of the hostage civilians go crazy aggressive, and Peter and Wade have to fight them off without hurting them, all while Peter is in heat and extra-susceptible to Johanneson's charms. When it's clear that Peter and Wade are still winning, Johanneson pulls a desperate move: he shoots out one of the windows leading outside the building, letting the white cloud of toxic gas pour in.
> 
> Wade covers Peter's face with a gas mask he had in his duffel bag just as the gas swoops in.


	25. Going To Combust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHHHHH my God.  
> If you're wondering where the heck I've been over the last three weeks, let me just say: like, everywhere. 
> 
> But I'm going to credit part of the long break to massive amounts of writer's block. Sometimes it is just very, very hard to get what's in your head to come out in your writing. 
> 
> I hope, after all this time, chapter 25 is at least up to everyone's expectations.
> 
> I'll be putting a summary in the end notes, but I really hope everyone reads this chapter all the way through, because I worked really hard on it X) Please leave comments. They revive my broken hands.

 

___PETER

 

There wasn’t much about Uncle Ben’s death that wasn’t a blur.  Peter couldn’t remember how long they waited for the EMTs to show up, or how long the ride to the hospital was.  He didn’t even really remember his reaction.

The thing that did stick in his mind, however, was what Aunt May had said to him the next day, as she set down takeout boxes on the table and stared at the place where Uncle Ben normally sat.

She wasn’t crying, maybe because she had cried all her tears out already.  But she’d taken Peter’s hand in her grip, and he could feel the despair in her voice.

“It might be the best reflection of how much someone means to us,” she’d said.  “How much we still feel them when they’re gone.”

Peter had opened his mouth, not really knowing what was going to come out before he said it.  “I miss him more than I miss my dad.”

Aunt May bowed her head and closed her eyes before finally raising her gaze to Peter.  She looked determined. “It’s not fair that you’ve lost so many people already, Peter. And I know it hurts to feel this pain.  But I don’t want you to be afraid to make relationships like this. I don’t want you to be so afraid of losing somebody that you never let yourself love them in the first place.”

Whether she’d read his mind, or whether she’d known his mind before even he did, he wasn’t sure.  All he knew was that hot tears were stinging his eyes. Aunt May pulled him to her shoulder, and he spent whatever tears he still had left, right there at the table.

 

~~~~

 

Everything was blocked out by the thick gas.  Even the sounds around him were muffled, as if he were plugging his ears with his fingers, trying not to listen.  Still, the sound of a heavy body falling behind him was unmistakable.

Peter pressed the gas mask against his face, gasping through the pain of his spider-sense panicking down his spine.  The mask was doing its job, but he could feel the sheer terror flashing through him again, like the aftershocks of his brush with death in Canada.  Even the heat that was burning his body took a second seat to the anxiety; he tried not to hyperventilate, tried not to clutch the mask so tightly that he’d crush the flimsy layer of plastic between his lungs and the nerve agent.

Through the dense air, the sound of scuffling behind him reached his ears.  He blindly reached back over his head, searching for something. Searching for Wade.

A hand fell on top of his and grasped tightly.

“Wade,” Peter gasped.  He wanted to find him. He wanted to find Wade and pull him close.  He wanted everything to be okay. But he was shaking, terror and heat and weakness in every muscle of his being.  The hand clutching his started shaking too. Violently.

It took so much effort to push himself up onto his elbows.  Peter turned over, his display showing nothing but the white gas, and a hand in a leather glove, holding Peter’s hand so tightly, the muscles clenched like they could never let go.  “Wade, please.” Peter choked on his anxiety, his voice coming out like a sob. 

The hand in Peter’s grip slowly stopped shaking.

Peter kept gripping hard even as the hand went lax.  With one full-force pull, he dragged himself over the form of Wade’s body, pressed his forehead into Wade’s sternum, tried to hold on.

It didn’t matter that Wade could come back.

He was dead now, under Peter’s face, in Peter’s hands.

“Wade, please, no, I can’t do this without you,” Peter whispered through the fabric of his suit and the plastic of the gas mask that Wade had given up for him.  His heat seemed far away now, as though his body was aware of the fact that it had lost the closest thing to a mate it had. Now was a moment not to think, not to feel, and Peter almost wished he didn’t exist, too.

Muffled footsteps steadily approached from behind him, stopping about five feet away.

“What a noble anti-hero.”

Peter didn’t lift his head from Wade’s chest.  He clutched his fingers in the leather of the mercenary’s uniform, as though he could hold onto Wade through the costume.  All he wanted was to be alone.

“Of course, he’s practically immortal.  Or, so I’ve heard.”

Anger flared in Peter’s chest.  “Get away.” Through the masks on his face, muffled by Wade’s body, darkened by fury, Peter’s voice came out as a growl.  Dangerous and low.

Johanneson was still standing barely a few feet away.  He breathed a laugh. “You sound like a petulant teenager.”

“Get.  Away. Now.”

Peter’s heart was pounding in his head and his body.  He wanted to have one, single, godforsaken minute alone with Wade, and this man, Wade’s murderer, wouldn’t even let him take that much time.  He wanted to breathe Wade in, to smell the man’s scent and know everything would be okay and he’d be back. But he couldn’t remove his mask, because of the swirling toxic gas.  Because of Johanneson.

“How much time do you think it usually takes for Deadpool to regenerate completely?  Because I researched his cellular biology and I tried to develop the gas to be particularly damaging.  I think it could take some time for him to recover -- ”

The words weren’t even fully out of Johanneson’s mouth before Peter snapped.  He was all anger and passion, his instinct left behind, as he shoved himself up off the floor, twisted toward Johanneson and shot webs towards his ankles.  With an uncalculated tug, he jerked the man’s feet out from under him. The action made the muscles in Peter’s shoulders scream.

Johanneson hit the floor hard, head bouncing back on the floor with what sounded like a sickening crack.  For a moment, Peter hesitated, still crouching there, sight still obscured by the toxic gas. Had he just killed the man with one imprecise move?

Under the constant hum of spider-sense warning him of the gas, a sharper sting shot down his spine.  Peter rolled sideways, over Wade’s body, as a bullet  _ banged _ from a handgun in Johanneson’s grip and ricocheted off the floor where Peter had just been.  He scrambled to his feet and watched Johanneson do the same in a cooler, calmer way.

“You are afraid, Spider-Man.”  Johanneson’s gun was still in his hand, but it hung by his side as the man stood, wolfishly grinning at Peter from the other side of Wade’s body.  Peter could no longer smell the man due to the mask, but he could feel his body still shaking with the effort not to submit. “I must admit, I am disappointed that you aren’t a little braver.  But, then again, what could I expect from an Omega? You are certainly creatures of little dignity; begging for everything you want, unable to help yourselves.” Johanneson almost looked truly disappointed.  His shoulders sagged as he looked down at Wade’s body, a dark form among the mist of gas. “At least your second gender inspired a selfless action. Or perhaps it was selfish, in the end. He made you watch him die.  But we could sweeten the sentiment by saying that he didn’t dare live a life without you in it, so he saved you instead of himself. Have a lot of people done that for you, or just him?”

Peter shook with a hot combination of anger, fear, sadness, and heat.  Unbidden, his mind shot to his parents and Uncle Ben, his loved ones whose lives had been snuffed out before his.  Aunt May, who constantly gave up everything for him, swam in front of his eyes.

“Certainly he’s made killing you less appealing.”  Johanneson  _ tsked _ , his features scrunched up, as if in pity.

There was nothing in the world he hated more than this man.  “Why is that?” Peter spat out, his words trembling as much as his body.

“Well, when there’s such a beautiful chance to make you see the consequences of your actions, and suffer first, why would I want to end it quickly?”

Spider-sense once more tingled down Peter’s neck, but it was so overridden by the swirl of gas around him, by the honeyed voice of Luka Johanneson, by the stress in Peter’s body, that he barely felt it.  He didn’t even flinch.

So when Johanneson lifted his gun to Peter’s face at point-blank range, Peter felt a hint of surprise, mingled with something sour and heavy.  Apathy? Maybe that was it. He’d already fought so hard, and lost something so important to him that he could barely stomach the thought. Maybe it was better to just close his eyes.

When he sensed the finger on the trigger, he didn’t move away.

God, he could feel Uncle Ben, almost waiting for him with his arms open.

Johanneson breathed a few feet away, unaffected by the gas.  After a moment, Peter heard the man speak his own language, like a ghost in the fog.  “ _ Vielleicht bist du mutig. _ ”

In his mind, standing behind Uncle Ben, was Aunt May.  She cracked a smile at him, but it wasn’t a happy smile.  “I understand, Peter,” she said simply. MJ and Ned appeared on either side of her, with equally sad smiles.  

Then, as if behind a thin curtain, Wade walked into his brain, out of focus and sounding distant.  “Baby boy, you do whatever you need to do. But I only got this one lifetime with you, because I can’t die.  If you cross that bridge, you won’t find me there.” The ghostly outline of Wade shrugged. “If you wait a little longer, I’ll be with you again.  Just gotta get this fucking gas out of my system, then I’ll be right as rain. I’ll never leave you alone again. I’ll be the Stan Lee of your life.  Just everywhere you go, making you say, ‘Oh yeah, this guy again.’ I promise, baby boy.”

Peter shook with the effort of even standing up, of being strong for so long.  He wanted to fight back, but his energy was gone.

But the bullet never came.  Instead, Peter sensed the gun recoil back and spring forward with all the force in the man’s arm; a blinding pain spread over Peter’s left temple as the metal butt met his skull.  

On any other day, the hit would have barely stunned him.  Today, he welcomed the sensation of the floor flying up to meet him and the promise of a rest that didn’t have to be permanent.

When he landed, it was on top of something that was large, and soft, and leather, and still warm.

  
  


~~~~~~

 

He was standing at the edge of a large precipice.  Somewhere, far below, he could hear a slow pulsing sound, like waves crashing on a beach in the distance.  Suddenly, the strength went out of his legs, and he felt himself falling forward, bringing a rushing feeling straight into his gut.  But before he slipped off the ledge, a strong arm circled his middle, and held him there.

“Who are you?” Peter cried, his head so tired that he couldn’t even lift it to identify his savior.  The arm had no distinguishing features. He couldn’t even tell if it belonged to a woman or a man.

Peter gasped for air, the sick feeling in his stomach growing.  “Who are you?” he choked. He wanted to flail but had no ability to lift his arms.  “ _ Who are you? _ ”

**Incoming call from Ned Leeds.  Should I reroute to your heads-up display?**

Peter’s eyes snapped open.

He was looking at himself, at his suit mask.  He watched the whites of his eyepieces adjust, heard the gears in his mask turn.

No, he wasn’t quite looking at himself.  He was looking at a shining hardwood floor.  It was so polished that it reflected everything in the room, even in a slightly distorted way.  He could see twinkling lights silhouetting his face; a chandelier was hung above him. 

The gas mask was gone.

It took him a moment to realize that the pain in his dream, the ache of his body, and the protesting in his abdomen, were all real.  He was bent double, his nose stinging like it had been mashed against his thigh while he was unconscious. By the way he couldn’t move his wrists or ankles, he could tell he was tied to something, like a chair.

**Would you like to answer this call, Peter?  It’s the third call from Ned in the last four minutes.**

Holy shit, the pain in his body was almost mind-numbing.  Peter slowly tried to pull himself upright, paying for it with the ache of effort in his neck, back, and shoulders.  “Yes, yeah, answer it, Karen,” he groaned.

In his field of vision, which was a bit blurry, the caller ID photo of Ned that they’d taken back during their sophomore year popped up.  Ned’s voice was suddenly in his mask in surround sound.

“Peter?”

He’d never heard something so amazing as Ned on the other end of the line.  For a moment, his throat was overcome with a painful lump of emotion. “Hi,” was all he managed in response.

“Dude, the news is plastered with the cloud over Tony Stark’s penthouse.  Are you winning?”

God, Ned’s innocent optimism made Peter’s chest expand.  “Yeah,” he responded weakly. “Got the bad guy on the ropes.”

“Really?”

“Well...by ‘on the ropes’ I mean he beat me unconscious and I’m tied up.  With ropes.”

“Oh.  Fuck. Are you okay?”  

“Relatively.”

There was a pause.  “Are you still in heat, too?”

“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that.”

“Is it really bad?”

Peter sat up a little more.  The pain in his stomach intensified, empty and lonely and all the things that he felt when pining for an Alpha.  Nearly all the strength seemed to have left him. His whole ass felt wet with slick, and his erection ached so much that he felt like his heartbeat was in his dick.

“Yeah.  But Wade’s dead.”

“ _ What? _  But he can’t die!”

“Well, he’s temporarily dead.  The bad guy sprung this gas on us, and Wade…”  Peter swallowed with difficulty. “Wade gave me his gas mask.  I was vulnerable because I didn’t have the Iron Spider suit on.  It’s in my backpack.”

“The backpack that I’ve got in my hands?”

“Probably.”  There was the sound of background talking from Ned’s end of the line.  “Where are you right now?”

“In your apartment, in your room.  Your aunt and your doctor lady are in the kitchen.  May is losing her absolute shit right now, dude.”

Peter closed his eyes for a second, recalling the image of May he’d made up in his mind, the one that had smiled sadly at him and told him it would be okay if he threw in the towel.  A cold burst of guilt joined the other sensations in his body. “It’s okay. I’m alive,” he heard himself saying to Ned.

“Where are you, though?”

Peter’s whole body was stiff, but he gingerly swiveled around in his chair to see what his surroundings looked like.  Even in his heat-induced pain and the post-unconsciousness stupor, he could appreciate the quality of the room he was in.  It almost reminded him of the Ritz-Carlton, except that there were some exquisite pieces of technology intermingled with the fine interior.  “I think I’m in Mr. Stark’s penthouse right now. I have to figure out a way to get out of here before the bad guy comes --” Peter’s voice faltered as he finally managed to look all the way over his shoulder.  Behind him was a tuft of dark brown hair, sticking up at all angles, and a purple, neatly-pressed collar. “Holy fuck, I’m tied to Mr. Stark.”

“Oh, shit.  He’s tied up, too?!”

His mentor’s head was hanging down, and the man’s whole body was slumped awkwardly, the back of his chair pressed against the back of Peter’s.  Peter twisted as far as he could without breaking his own wrists and tried to nudge Tony. “Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark, are you okay?” Peter was tilted so far that for a moment, he almost threw his chair off balance.  He leaned back before the whole thing toppled over; Tony’s head lolled unresponsively with the movement. Panic flooded Peter’s brain, cutting through the haze of his heat. “Fuck. Mr. Stark, answer me. Come on!”

“Is he dead?” Ned’s voice was quiet and scared in his ear.

Peter’s heartbeat pounded equally in his head, chest, and groin as he tried rocked the chair back and forth in an effort to rouse the billionaire.  “Shut up for a second, Ned. I’m trying to see if he’s alive. I just don’t have any fucking hands.”

“What about your spider drone thing?”

Peter instantly regretted every time he’d ever thought he was smarter than Ned.  He could have kissed him now. “Oh my God, Ned, I love you. Droney!”

A small vibration buzzed to life on the front of his suit, and a moment later, the spider-shaped drone that Mr. Stark had installed detached itself from him and hovered in front of his face, waiting for directions.  “Karen, have Droney try to wake up Mr. Stark.”

**Yes, Peter.  But Tony Stark is alive.  I can detect his heartbeat.**

The relief made all of Peter’s muscles go even weaker, if that was possible.  “Thank. God,” he squeaked out.

“What?  Thank God what?” Ned said quickly on the other end.

“He’s alive.  I’m just going to have my drone wake him up.”

“Oh my God, can you imagine if you’d been tied to a dead Tony Stark?”

Peter treated Ned’s question as a macabre rhetorical and instead focused on his drone, which had gone to work behind him, examining Mr. Stark carefully.  Finally, after what appeared to be a moment of discovery, the drone tentatively reached out one spider leg and stuck his mentor right under one of his fingernails.

Mr. Stark roared behind him, jerking into an upright position.  The drone flinched back, gave a small  _ squee _ of mechanical workings, and buzzed back to safety in its spot on Peter’s chest.

Peter twisted around again, the other way, since his back was aching with effort.  “Mr. Stark,” he started, but the billionaire cut him off with a stream of expletives.  Peter waited while the man seemed to curse himself out. After a solid twenty seconds of bellowing, Tony settled into heavy breathing, and then turned his head to the side.  His eyes ran down the line of Peter’s arm, recognizing the suit instantly, and his expression fell from angry to regretful.

“Goddamnit, Parker, you got dragged into this?”

“You were in trouble.  I wanted to help.”

“Kid…”  The billionaire seemed exasperated, but tired above all, and reduced to searching for words now that he’d used all his four-letter ones.  “This is...this is WAY above your pay grade.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t get paid to do the right thing, then.”

Tony sagged behind him, and Peter realized they were being held by the same ropes, tied intricately between the two of them.  He hoped he hadn’t given Mr. Stark too much rope burn as he’d been twisting around. “You should get out of here, kid, while you can.”

“I’m not just going to leave you.  It’s not like the Avengers are here.”

Mr. Stark grunted.  “Good.”

“Good?”

“The last thing I want is for everyone else to turn up and get put in danger.  The Hydra agent came for ME, to torture ME. There’s no reason for the rest of you to get involved.  So you should go, Pete.”

Mr. Stark turned his head again, at the same time Peter did.  The smell of something woodsy and expensive caught Peter’s nose; the Alpha smell made him nearly dizzy.  “To be honest, I don’t...I don’t know if I can.”

For a moment, Tony was silent.  Then Peter could hear him sniffing the air.

“Fucking hell, you’re still in heat, aren’t you?”

There was no lying when slick was almost dripping off the chair.  “Yeah.”

“Jesus, Pete.  Why would you do this?  Why would you come here when you’re compromised like this?”

Peter twisted against the ropes, making Tony hiss against the rub of the rough material.  “Because I can’t just sit by and let my second gender determine the kind of person I am! Why doesn’t anybody get that!”

“Okay, okay, Christ, stop moving around!”

With some effort, Peter stilled his body.  The scent of Tony was difficult to ignore, though, and his body was responding to it with embarrassing pulses of slick.  After all, he was the only Alpha in the room.

Tony was breathing loudly; it was only after a moment that Peter realized his mentor had switched to breathing through his mouth.  God, he probably reeked of slick and arousal. Part of him wondered how long he’d been in heat and how much stress it was putting on his body.  Part of him wondered if Wade -- if Mr. Stark -- had been right. Maybe he was only a liability.

“Okay, Pete.  Look, we just...we just have to figure out a plan to get out of here.  And we have to do it discreetly. The Hydra guy wants information, so he could be watching us even now.”

“Did everyone forget I’m on the phone?” Ned suddenly piped in, inside Peter’s mask.

Peter jerked in his seat, prompting another hiss from Tony.  “Oh shit, Mr. Stark. I’ve got my friend Ned on the line!”

Tony laughed dryly.  “Karen has access to the phone function in your suit.  You could call anyone in the world. You could have called the National Guard.  And we’ve got your high school buddy?”

“He called me when I was unconscious,” Peter said indignantly.  “He’s the one that woke me up after Johanneson knocked me out.”

The fact that Peter had been unconscious was new information to Tony, who didn’t seem to know what to say.  Peter straightened up, trying desperately to ignore the way his body was throbbing and his head was spinning.  He wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been in his current heat wave for almost two hours. “Ned, we need an idea, fast.  You’re the only one of us who hasn’t been knocked out in the last thirty minutes, so you’ve got the most highly functioning brain right now.  Karen, put Ned on speakerphone.”

Mr. Stark made a scoffing noise, but didn’t argue.

Ned, on the other hand, was having a shining moment.  “Yes! Guy in the chair!” He cleared his throat, trying to make his tone serious.  “Break it down for me. Does this Johanneson guy have any weaknesses?”

For the next few minutes, Peter explained everything he knew about Luka Johanneson.  He described the way he’d been developing toxic gases, and how it was his weapon of choice.  On the other hand, the guy was impervious to bullets, it seemed. He was halfway through explaining how Johanneson had given Peter bonding hormone with Johanneson’s DNA in his heat inducer when Tony, behind Peter, moved so harshly that Peter’s fingers got pinched between their chairs and he broke off his sentence with a yelp.

“That bastard spiked your heat regulator with bonding hormone?  I ought to kill him -- ”

Ned cut in suddenly.  “Wait. I have an idea.  He spiked your pills, right?  And they’re in your backpack here, with your suit.  What if we found some way to turn the tables on this guy?”

The effort that it took to explain the whole situation to Ned had pulled most of Peter’s remaining energy out of him.  He hadn’t even noticed that he was starting to slump forward. With some difficulty, Peter prompted Ned to continue.

“I just mean -- he drugged you into heat.  Maybe you can put him into a rut. Especially if we can somehow give him bonding hormone, too.”

It was to Peter’s utter relief that Tony answered this time.  “Putting Johanneson into a rut might compromise his invulnerability.  You could add some of Peter’s DNA to the leftover pills and find a way to convert them to something breathable.  A fine powder, something we can spring on him by surprise.”

“Why...why my DNA?” Peter managed, finding it hard to keep his focus.  The room was swimming.

Tony didn’t notice Peter’s rapidly declining state.  He continued excitedly. “The pills aren’t formulated to cause a rut -- they’re formulated to cause a heat.  What we need is his body to naturally put him into a rut in response to an Omega in heat. And usually you can only do that when you have some kind of bond involved.  Since you’re the Omega in the room, Peter, we’ve got to make him vulnerable to your pheromones.”

“Well, I’ve got Dr. Thompson in the next room, and I have an A in Chemistry,” Ned said confidently.  “We’ll get this figured out.”

“When it’s done, give it to the Iron Spider suit!” Tony added hurriedly.  “It has lightweight flight capability. It won’t fly when Peter’s in it, but it can get from point A to point B on its own.  Send it to us with the powder. And well done, kid.”

Peter could almost feel Ned beaming through the phone.

“No problem, Mr. Stark.  I’ll get to work. You guys don’t get beat up too badly.”  And then Ned clicked off the line.

Tony was laughing incredulously.  “Damn, Pete, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we might still get out of -- hey, you okay?”

Peter had lurched forward so that his face was nearly between his knees again.  He knew that he must be cutting off Mr. Stark’s circulation by pulling the ropes so tight, but he couldn’t seem to make his muscles work.  He needed to get rid of the pain, the aching. The emptiness in his lower abdomen had almost become so widespread that it no longer seemed to be confined to his torso.  His whole suit was damp with sweat, slick, and precum. He needed to find relief. He needed to come. He fucking needed to throw up.

Mr. Stark’s voice sounded faint.  “Hang in there, kid. How long have you been in this heat wave?”

Peter pressed his face into his leg.  Answering coherently seemed impossible; he whimpered instead.

“Fuck.  Pete, stay with me.  Are you going into heat shock?”

Why was Tony asking so many questions?  Why couldn’t somebody just  _ help _ him?  Why wouldn’t Wade fuck him?

_ Wade is dead. _

_ Wade is dead and it’s because he wanted to protect you. _

_ Wade is dead and it’s because you weren’t good enough.  He was the only person who loved you and now he’s gone. _  Peter shook, eyes pressed shut tightly.   _ Now you need another Alpha to fuck you and make you feel like you’re worth something. _

He didn’t know how many minutes he sat there, trembling.  He didn’t even realize he was crying until he heard how wrecked his voice sounded.  “Mr. Stark,” he whispered, blinking his eyes open. “Help me.”

“Kid.”  Mr. Stark’s voice sounded higher.  Panicked? Peter couldn’t tell. “Kid, I will.  We’ll get you out of here. We’ll find Deadpool, okay?”

Peter choked on the lump in his throat.  “Wade is dead,” he moaned against his thigh.  “I’m going to be next. I’m going to die.”

The bindings around Peter’s wrists were cutting so sharply against his skin.  He felt hot, distant, like his body wasn’t his anymore. “Pete, stop. Focus, kid.  You’re going to be fine.”

“Help me.  Please.”

Mr. Stark seemed miles away, his voice even higher.  “I...I can’t, kid, even if we weren’t tied up...you know I can’t help you like...like that.”

He knew.  Peter knew that Mr. Stark had handed him off from the beginning, never wanting to violate their relationship.  And he was happy -- or had been happy, at one time, though it seemed like a long time ago -- that Wade had agreed to be his Alpha.  

It didn’t change the fact that every muscle in his body was now shaking violently.

“Fuck.  Fuck, Peter, don’t give out on me,” Mr. Stark was saying.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter croaked weakly, his voice muffled by his mask and the way that his lips were pressed against his thigh.  “What’s heat shock?”

The ropes around Peter’s wrists were moving back and forth.  Tony was speaking slowly and calmly, like he was afraid Peter was going to combust.  “You just need to finish this wave of heat. Your body is under too much stress.”

Every breath Peter took felt like flames in his trachea.  “I’ve never...had heat shock before….”

“It’s probably because the bonding hormone has increased the intensity of your heat.  Just stay with me, okay? Wade will come back, you know that. He can come back.”

Peter closed his eyes.  The ropes at his wrists were still moving back and forth, with more and more vigor.  For several minutes, he heard Tony breathing quietly, pulling at the rope rhythmically.  The motion was simultaneously grounding and maddening.

He felt dangerously close to losing consciousness again when he heard the sound of an elevator  _ ding _ , faint, almost in another world.

A door opened.

In slow waves, Peter could feel the new Alpha scent wash over him.  It was airy and almost neutral, but there was a harsh undercurrent to it that felt agitated and thick.  The empty space inside him, which now felt like it reached from his shoulders to his knees instead of simply in his lower belly, seemed to grow spikes and burn with need.  He’d slicked himself so much that he felt raw. The inside of his mask was damp with his own rattling breaths.

“Mentor and mentee, together for one crushing defeat.”  Johanneson’s voice rang out against the hardwood floors and solid surfaces of Tony’s penthouse.  “How does it feel to see your protege so weak,  _ Mr. Stark _ ?”

The ropes against Peter’s wrists were still moving, but subtly.  Peter found he had little strength to care, however, except for the fact that the material wasn’t cutting into his skin so much.  It was one fewer source of pain to worry about.

“Can’t you just deal with me, man?” Mr. Stark was saying.  “Leave Spider-Man out of this.”

The Alpha scent was getting stronger, so thick in the air that Peter felt like he needed to gasp in his breaths in order to get any oxygen.  Suddenly, a hand was on the back of his neck; it gripped his skin and yanked him upright. He groaned in protest as pain shot down his spine and his cock leaked in his suit.

Johanneson was eyeing Peter with a twisted sort of grin.  “I didn’t bring Spider-Man into this, Stark. He chose to come here, with the mercenary.  I just disposed Deadpool a little more properly. I don’t think he’ll be coming back so quickly after falling 52 floors to the streets of Manhattan.”  Peter whimpered against the grip on his neck, against the image of Wade lying broken on the sidewalk. “You can consider them both collateral damage for what you’ve done.”

“WHAT HAVE I DONE?” Tony yelled furiously.  The chairs rocked dangerously as Mr. Stark twisted about.  “What the fuck have I done that has given you such a fucking vendetta against me?”

“Let me count the ways,” Johanneson barked in his accent.  His fingers were tight against the ridges of Peter’s spinal cord, and he felt the first finger bear down on him with unrelenting force.  “Firstly, you have used your intellect to make the Avengers a far more formidable team, which gets in the way of the developments we have at Hydra.”  A second finger tightened its grip, driving a spike of pain and hard arousal into Peter’s groin. “Secondly, you have continued to recruit outside of the jurisdiction of S.H.I.E.L.D., including unregistered enhanced humans.  Like Spider-Man, for example. This makes things  _ very _ difficult, as you can imagine, for Hydra, since we had once fancied ourselves privy to the information that S.H.I.E.L.D. kept on enhanced humans.”  The third finger came down even more brutally than the other two. Peter bent forward, trying to escape the pressure. “And lastly, Stark, you have robbed Hydra of a very valuable asset.  I’m sure you can understand the value of the American dollar, and therefore you’ll understand how unhappy we were to lose something worth tens of millions of them.”

Peter shook under Johanneson’s hand.  If it had been anyone else -- even any other Alpha -- he might have been able to think properly.  But the fact that this Alpha was the one whose DNA was tied to the bonding hormones coursing through Peter’s body made it impossible to bring his mind to anything other than the overwhelming pressure in his spine and his cock.

“What would I steal from Hydra?” Tony spat.  “What would I even be  _ remotely _ interested in taking from a terrorist group?”

Johanneson laughed.  “Not  _ what _ .   _ Who _ .”

The hand left Peter’s neck, and mercifully he was able to collapse forward, away from the pressure of the grip, bending inwards on himself as though he could protect his body from the onslaught of the heat and the pheromones.

Then Tony began screaming.

Peter could feel the ropes jerking and the chairs creaking under his mentor’s physical straining.  Johanneson was hurting Tony. Torturing him.

“You not only tried to kill our asset, but you have now failed to disclose his whereabouts, even to the American government!” Johanneson was shouting over Tony’s screams.  “You will tell me what I want to know, or you will get much worse than this!”

Tony pulled against the ropes violently.  “I don’t know! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“The Winter Soldier!” Johanneson yelled back, his voice and his pheromones crazed with passion.  “You know where he is!”

The sound of bone against flesh  _ cracked _ through the penthouse; Tony’s screams stopped and the billionaire’s chair swayed hard to the side.  There was a sharp  _ snap _ , and suddenly Peter’s whole body lurched forward.  He barely caught himself on one forearm before hitting the hardwood floor face-first; the rope tying them together had broken.  A frayed edge landed near Peter’s face; it looked as though it had been mostly severed by something sharp.

Tony had been trying to cut the rope while they’d been alone.

Peter kicked the loosened bindings off his ankles and made to scramble to his feet, but before he even got to his knees, the hand was back on his neck.  He struggled hard against Johanneson’s iron-like grip as the man dragged Peter upwards. The headiness of the pheromones in the air had rendered him mostly useless; he could barely see with how dizzy he was with desperation.  Yet, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mr. Stark slumped on the floor, unmoving.

“You’ve tried very hard, Spider-Man,” Johanneson said, his voice almost wheedling and pitying.  “Isn’t it time that you gave up?”

It took all of Peter’s energy to drive a poorly-aimed kick into Johanneson’s knee.  The man barely flinched, but his gaze darkened. “Fine. I can see that it was a nuisance to keep you alive, after all.”  Johanneson dragged Peter, whose feet were nearly useless by now, to a section of Tony’s wall that was decorated by metal paneling.  Before Peter even knew what was happening, his back was flush against the metal, and a small, horseshoe-shaped containment magnet was around his neck.  His head banged back against the wall at the force with which the magnet attached itself to the metal paneling.

“These units almost kept Captain America at bay, back when Hydra had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Johanneson laughed.  “I think that one will suffice to keep our little Omega perfectly helpless.” The man stepped backward and released Peter’s weight; Peter scrabbled at the smooth curve of the bar of the containment magnet.  He was pinned by the neck at a height where his toes barely scraped the floor. It was nearly impossible to keep his windpipe from pressing against the metal; he gasped for breath.

“How would you like to die, Spider-Man?” Johanneson offered charitably.  “By bullet, quickly and easily? Or by gas, the same way as your lover?”

Peter choked as he tried to alleviate some of his weight with his fingertips, holding onto the metal of the containment magnet.  How could he answer? He felt half-dead already, his body betraying him, his powers worthless.

Johanneson cocked his head to the side, as though he admired Peter’s continuous struggle.  Then he raised his handgun.

Far below in the building, there was a crashing noise.  Simultaneously, both Peter and Johanneson looked down toward the floor, as though expecting something to burst through the shiny, polished wood.  After several seconds, Johanneson looked back up at Peter, with an oddly apologetic smile.

“Well, no Deadpool-ex-machina this time.”

No sooner had the words left Johanneson’s mouth than the sound of crunching metal shrieked in the elevator hallway outside the penthouse.  The door to the elevator folded out, and a whirl of metallic red shot out of the shaft like a bat out of hell. Johanneson flung himself out of the way as the shape hurled itself toward Peter and hit him with the force of a small vehicle collision.

Within seconds, the nanotechnology had unfurled from his torso, down his legs, his arms, and up over his neck and head.  Ned had sent the Iron Spider suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short summary (and I mean, I'm really glossing here):  
> After the gas sweeps into the 52nd floor, Wade dies holding Peter's hand. Peter nearly gives up on life (he's exhausted and devastated), but Johanneson decides to knock him unconscious instead of killing him.  
> Peter wakes up to a phone call from Ned. It turns out Peter is tied up to an unconscious Tony Stark, in Tony's penthouse. When Peter manages to rouse Tony, he, Tony, and Ned come up with a plan of action. Meanwhile, Peter is descending into heat shock...his body is starting to fail from being in a wave of heat for too long without a reprieve.
> 
> When Johanneson re-enters the scene, we find out that he wants one particular piece of information from Tony: the whereabouts of a very expensive Hydra asset, the Winter Soldier. Johanneson's violent interrogation techniques, however, cause the weakened rope holding Peter and Tony together to break; Peter is too weak to escape and Johanneson restrains him to the wall. Peter's about to be offed when the Iron Spider suit flies in.
> 
> PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS OKAY I WORKED REALLY HARD ON THIS and my spirit and my hands are barely recovering


	26. Close Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter isn't super long, but I hope you guys enjoy it! My life is CRAZY right now and I honestly just kind of banged a lot of this out today and didn't even proofread it. BUT PLEASE READ AND LEAVE COMMENTS I LOVE YOU ALL.
> 
> WARNINGS for Non-Con contact and some really psychosexual stuff.

 

____PETER

 

The impact of the Iron Spider suit knocked the wind out of him.

Inside the nanotechnology, the fabric mask of his regular suit was still on, still damp with his breath.  For a solid ten seconds, his lungs spasmed, unable to draw in a proper breath, while Johanneson slowly picked himself up off the floor.

Thank God for Karen.

**Peter, your blood oxygenation level has fallen below a healthy range.  Try taking slower, deeper breaths.**

He choked through his mouth, his throat working so hard to pull in air that it felt raw.

**You’re doing great.  Just keep breathing.**

Fuck, Karen was the best thing that Tony Stark had ever designed.

By now, Johanneson was standing up, albeit looking a little shakier than he had before.  He eyed the Iron Spider suit from a safe distance, clearly wary of anything that had suddenly burst through the elevator from seemingly nowhere.  Finally, when he seemed satisfied that Peter wasn’t about to burst into flames, he took a few steps closer. His gun pointed at the floor. Against the Iron Spider suit, bullets were pretty much useless.

“What is your plan, then, Spider-Man?” Johanneson laughed.  His dark eyes were truly curious. “You’ve called your indestructible suit.  Unfortunately, that means I can’t put you out of your misery. So you get to watch me torture and kill Tony Stark.”

Peter’s metal-covered fingers gripped as hard on the bar around his neck.  “Dude, you’ve got some serious anger issues,” he gasped. “Could...could probably give the Hulk a run for his money -- ”

His voice faltered as Johanneson came closer and slid a hand under Peter’s chin, pressing back just far enough for Peter to feel the pressure on his windpipe.  “You think I’ve been angry so far?” The man grinned as Peter’s heart beat wildly in his chest. “I think you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Johanneson was an inch from Peter’s face; he couldn’t smell the Alpha but the proximity of his body made Peter squeeze his eyes shut.  Slick dribbled down the back of his thigh.

Then, he heard a strange _click_ from somewhere near his right shoulder.  A pressurized _hiss_ burst into the space in front of him.  He opened his eyes to see a cloud of dust that his suit had just expelled into the air; the hand at his throat was suddenly gone.

In the dust, Peter could see Luka Johanneson staggering backward.

In theory, the plan had gone just as it was supposed to.  Johanneson would be inundated by a rut, thereby allowing Peter a chance to incapacitate the man and get Mr. Stark and himself to safety.  

However, he hadn’t realized that he’d be pinned by the neck to the wall.  Now the only way Peter would be able to incapacitate him would be if the man got close enough for Peter to punch him in the nuts or spear him with one of his Iron Spider legs.

Johanneson was on the ground, his hand over his mouth and nose as he coughed violently against the powder.  Still, the man was unlikely to be down and out for very long; Peter kicked wildly against the wall, trying to ignore the way that the movement only intensified the heat in his body.  It also dug the metal bar into his throat, and he tried to keep in mind that Karen had said his blood oxygen level was low. It seemed like the lower it got, the less he was able to keep anything in mind.

The room swam and he had no choice but to rest for a moment.  His muscles were all on fire as Johanneson slowly pushed himself up off the ground, gun raised back at Peter.

“You...you tell me what that was,” the man panted, holding his throat with the hand that wasn’t holding a firearm.  “And if you lie, I will find a way to break into that suit and pull you out of it piece by piece.”

Peter shook his head, the metal of his suit clicking disconcertingly against the metal restraint around his neck.  “Sorry, but Tony Stark built this suit, which means you’re not getting in it.” And that meant that they were at a stalemate; Peter in an indestructible suit, stuck to the wall, while Johanneson couldn’t kill him.

And yet, the man was grinning.  “Everyone talks about Tony Stark like he’s a genius man.  But you tell me, Spider-Man, where his suits are right now,” Johanneson gestured behind him, “when he’s lying on the floor?”

“Hey man,” Peter said slowly, throat feeling raw, “we all want answers in life.  But you keep asking me to tell you stuff like I’m NOT a guy nailed by the neck to a wall.  I mean, clearly my life is in complete and utter order here.”

The grin on Johanneson’s face melted into a snarl.  It made Peter’s blood feel cold, even as his heat was burning in his body.

Then, without another word, Johanneson lowered his gun, walked around the chairs in the middle of the room, and stood over Mr. Stark’s unconscious body.  Peter’s spider-sense seemed to have been maintaining a low hum since they’d been surrounded by the gas that killed Deadpool, but now, he felt a thrill of it in the back of his head as Johanneson looked down, eyes brimming with disgust, at Peter’s mentor.

Even though it increased the pressure on his neck, Peter let go of the metal bar with one hand and shot a web at Johanneson’s hand, just as it was raising the gun.  He’d meant to pull the gun right out of his grip, but Peter’s strength was so compromised by his heat that he barely tugged the gun a few inches to the left. There was a deafening _bang_ and a bullet went through the floor near Mr. Stark’s thigh.

Johanneson sighed, training his focus on Tony’s face, even as he addressed Peter.  His tone was tight, irate. “I was only going to shoot him in the leg. But it’s nice to know that your strength is failing you so spectacularly, Spider-Man.  Are you entering ‘heat shock,’ as they call it? Do you feel your body starting to succumb to the stress of it?” The gun retrained its position, now at Tony’s head.  “Do you need an Alpha to save you from your own self?”

Peter watched the man’s finger go to the trigger, as if it were all happening in slow motion.  His spider-sense flittered sluggishly up the back of his neck, trying to warn him, trying to function even as he felt himself shutting down.  Why was his heart beating so fast? How could he stop the room from spinning?

How many more moments did he have before he couldn’t take it anymore?

“Man, you have a problem with underestimating Omegas,” Peter slurred.  “This might surprise you, but Alphas have weaknesses, too.”

Johanneson looked up at him just as Peter closed his eyes tight.  A second later, he felt the strange, liquid-metal sensation of the nanotechnology rolling back over his head, uncovering the fabric mask everywhere from the neck up.

And then, with the hand that wasn’t holding onto the containment magnet for dear life, Peter reached up and dug his metallic fingers into the top of his mask.

And pulled it off sideways.

  


~~~~

 

___WADE

 

Being dead sometimes had its advantages.  In the past, when the boxes would get too loud, or the city was too quiet, or people were too awful, Wade sometimes gave himself an out.  It was dark, but he’d done it. He’d even died like four times in a movie once.

Usually, he was all right with staying for a while, too.  Most of the time, he’d find himself in a dreamy version of his old apartment with Vanessa.  She’d been on the other side of a barrier, one that he couldn’t cross, and given him cryptic messages.  After she’d come back to life -- it was a long story -- he’d stopped seeing her there. Then, as she became more and more distant in his real existence, the dreamy apartment had even started to become different.  Nowadays, he wasn’t sure where he’d find himself if he kicked it, just that inevitably there’d be a place for him to lie down and stretch out and kill the time until his body regenerated and brought him back into the noisy, frenetic world.

Honestly, though, it threw him for a loop when he ended up on a foggy rooftop in some borough of New York.

Wade looked around, trying to find a defining landmark that would put him in a certain place.  He could see Manhattan, but it was so cloudy with afterlife-mist that he couldn’t orient himself around it.  Was he east or west of it? It was impossible to tell.

He made a few more dizzying circles until he couldn’t stand up anymore and fell flat onto his back on the roof.  It was definitely nighttime in the afterlife right now. A ghostly moon hung in the sky above him.

Nothing to do now but pass the time.  Wade whistled and twiddled his thumbs over his stomach, waiting for that faint pull to start in his navel.  It would start gentle and become a gnawing sensation until suddenly he was jerked back to his body like some slightly-handsomer zombie.  He’d done this all before. The fact that the boxes didn’t exist here made it simultaneously more peaceful and more boring.

Wade was just about to close his eyes and take himself an Inception-nap when he heard something else on the roof.  Light footsteps, maybe. Curious, Wade crooked one eye open and shifted over onto an elbow to look around. There, by the corner of the roof, were red boots.

Except they weren’t just boots.  They were attached to someone. Someone he liked very much.

“Peter?”

Wade pushed himself up onto his feet, eyes trying to bore through the mist enough to see the figure standing there.  Yes, there was no mistaking it. Those white, triangular eyes looked at him unblinkingly.

“What are you doing here?  Are you dead?”

The masked figure of his lover cocked his head to one side, then looked down at his limbs, as though taking inventory.  Finally, he looked up again, and spoke. “I don’t think so?”

God, it was Petey’s voice, sounding so unsure.  Wade found himself walking toward his baby boy. Why was he there?  What was going on?

Mercifully, no barrier rushed up to meet him.  Peter wasn’t on the other side of some impassable wall, unlike how Vanessa had been when she was dead.  No, he was here, on this side of the barrier. But when Wade reached out to touch him, his hands went right through Peter, as though he were merely a spirit.

“Baby boy, what’s going on?  Why are you here?”

Peter’s mechanical eyes narrowed and shut, and his whole body seemed to sag in front of Wade.  Finally, he reached up and thumbed the underside of his mask, rolling up the edge until his face and hair were free.  He looked so pale, like death. His lips were nearly white.

“I’m so tired, Wade,” Peter whispered.

Wade breathed deeply.  “What do you mean, Petey?”

“You’re gone,” the kid managed, and now Wade could see transparent tears melting down Peter’s face.  “You’re gone and I don’t have any strength left. I’m weak. My powers are weak.”

When Wade was dead, his mind seemed separate from the real world.  He rarely remembered what had caused his death or why he was there -- he only knew that he had to wait a matter of time before he’d be back.  But now, seeing Peter, the scene came flooding into his brain. The fight with the civilians, the Hydra fuck trying to kill them, the gas that had surrounded them, the way that Wade had pressed his gas mask into Peter’s face.

“Are you still fighting, baby boy?” Wade asked quietly.

“I’m...trying.”

Wade could see tears thickly falling down Peter’s cheeks.  “Are you...losing?”

Peter’s shoulders shook.  “I’m scared. I’m scared and I have no control and I’m….”  The kid’s eyes suddenly fluttered shut, and his mouth opened in pain.  His hand pressed to his abdomen -- the place that Wade had seen Peter hold so many times.  “It hurts, Wade.”

Wade raised his hands weakly, trying to figure out a way to fold Peter into a hug, but his hands simply passed through the shape of Peter’s body.  “I want to help you, baby boy. I do.”

Peter grimaced.  “I want to be here with you.”

In death, Wade probably had no heartbeat.  But he still felt whatever constant thrumming kept his spirit anchored to the world.  Now, in response to Peter’s words, it threatened to stop.

“Baby boy, don’t say that.”

“I need it to end.  I want to be here. I want to be with you.”

Wade felt his stomach churn.  “Peter. You can’t. If you die, you’re not going to stop on this quaint little rooftop in…” Wade looked around, feeling cold at the sudden realization of where they were standing, “...Queens.  You’re going to pass right through and keep going to a place where I can’t go.”

Peter was shaking violently, and without being able to cling for Wade to support, his lithe little body folded over and the kid went to his knees.  He was sobbing.

“If you want to let go, Peter, you can.  There are other people there for you. But I won’t be.  So please...if you can.” Wade swallowed hard, trying to keep his voice from shaking.  “If you can hold on, so we can spend a little more time together. Please, do it.”

The sobbing stopped, and the pale face of his Omega turned and looked up at Wade.  Brown eyes shone in the light of the afterlife-moon.

Without another word, Peter disappeared.

Wade stared at the rooftop where Peter had just been.  “Wait,” he croaked. “Wait, what does that mean? What did you choose?”  He turned around, almost expecting to see Peter behind him, or behind a barrier, or floating angelically in the sky like his pure soul deserved to be, instead of broken and crying on a gravelly rooftop.  “Petey? Peter!”

He stood there, unmoving, unable to let himself wait out his death peacefully, unable to stop thinking about Peter’s face.  It took what felt like -- what very well could have been -- several gruelling hours for Wade to feel the pull in his navel, for it to grow until it was undeniable, for him to feel his feet leave the rooftop and feel his body suddenly rush up to meet him.

Wade blinked into a deafening world that looked nothing like the room he’d fallen asleep in.  He was strapped down to something soft, but he could turn his head. The first person he saw was a woman in desert camouflage with ear protection over her helmet and a rifle in her arms.

Wade had to shout over the roar of the helicopter engine.  “I SWEAR I WON’T KILL YOU ALL IF YOU TELL ME RIGHT NOW -- IS SPIDER-MAN OKAY?”

 

~~~~

 

___PETER

 

Air hit his face, but not the refreshing kind of air that he needed.  It was air thick with pheromones and sweat and the smell of slick. It was heady, intoxicating air, even more dizzying without his fabric mask on.  Peter dropped his mask to the floor and raised his hand again to cling to the containment magnet bar, struggling to keep breathing. He opened his eyes and blearily found the shapes of Johanneson and Mr. Stark.

When Johanneson’s face came into focus, Peter felt his heart nearly stop in his chest.

The man was staring at Peter’s face, his eyes wide, almost comically so.  The gun was no longer pointed at Mr. Stark, but had fallen to the man’s side limply, still trailing a bit of webbing.  

With each panting breath, Peter could feel the pheromones in the room changing, getting darker, more aroused, matching his own need.  

Johanneson’s chest was rising and falling rapidly.  Ned had done it right -- he had made a dust that would give Johanneson bonding hormones tinged with Peter’s DNA.  And Peter’s scent, straight from the bared skin of his neck, had put Johanneson into a rut.

The gun clattered to the floor.

Like a much older man, Johanneson staggered toward Peter, almost looking injured, by his heavy gait.  His eyes had gone dark with wide pupils. His collar was askew, pulsing the smell of a rutting Alpha into the air.  Peter’s cock throbbed and pulsed precum in his suit. _Yes,_ he couldn’t help but think, _yes, please._  At the same time -- almost the way he imagined Wade’s boxes created a maddening dichotomy in the mercenary’s head -- he heard his rational brain think, _When he’s close enough, stab him with one of the suit legs.  Don’t kill him, just incapacitate him. You’ll need to focus.  When he’s close enough._

When Johanneson opened his mouth, Peter was expecting him to say something angry, but instead, the man reached out a hand, ran it through Peter’s sweaty hair, and said, “So young.”

The fingers against his scalp were like electrical conductors.  Peter gasped against the contact, his body lighting up with the physical touch of an Alpha.  The hand suddenly gripped at his hair, pulling his head back towards the wall to expose his throat.  The pain of it was overridden by the desperation that shuddered through his body. Inside him, the empty space seemed all-engulfing.  He was going to die if this Alpha didn’t help him.

“And all this time, I’ve been trying to kill, when I could have merely corrupted,” Johanneson whispered.  His nose came flush to Peter’s skin, the rest of the man’s body so close that Peter could feel the heat off it.  “You could be working for me within weeks, with the right persuasion, couldn’t you?”

Suddenly, solid hips were against Peter’s body, pressed so firmly that Peter could feel his heartbeat there between them.  The pressure against his cock made him groan out loud; he’d been waiting for hours for any kind of stimulation. Johanneson rolled his hips once, and Peter’s orgasm boiled up in his pelvis, ready, waiting for just the right touch.  He needed to come.

But he needed to keep focus.  Johanneson was there, _right there_ ...if only Peter could keep his thought process trained long enough to get his suit to do his bidding.  He knew that the long, spindly legs were waiting in his back, waiting for him to intuit the need to use them, just the way that Tony used his nanotechnology.  He needed to just _think_ hard enough, to make them work, to finish this and wait for Mr. Stark to wake up and wait for Wade to wake up and get the help he needed….

The hips in front of him drove into his pelvis again, and Peter choked out a sob.  Why would he wait for help that might not come, when he could get help right now? Why would he wait for another Alpha, when this one...this one that he could feel a bond with...was right here?

Johanneson was rutting into him in earnest, his hot breaths on Peter’s neck.

“Please,” Peter panted.  “Please.”

“That’s right,” Johanneson laughed under Peter’s ear.  “You’re in heat shock, aren’t you?” One hand was still gripping Peter’s hair painfully, but the other made its way down Peter’s metallic chest, to the empty spot in his stomach.  “I’ve never seen a hero come so undone. But then again, I’ve never seen a hero who was barely old enough to be a hero in the first place.”

Peter clung to the metal bar pinning him to the wall as his bruised neck slammed into the containment magnet with each rutting thrust.  He had no energy, no strength left. The fingers of his left hand slipped off the bar, followed by the fingers of his right hand. His toes barely scraped the ground as his full weight pressed down into the bar, choking him.

Luka Johanneson seemed to be lost to his rut, almost in the same way that Peter was losing to his heat.  There was nothing to keep him grounded now, nothing to stop the dark edges of his vision from closing in.  His lungs protested as he tried to pull in a breath, but it was stopped in his throat by the containment magnet.  Painful pressure built in his chest as painful pressure built in his pelvis.

Then the hand in his hair tightened even more, and his head slammed so hard into the wall that it lifted his throat off the bar.  The breath that flooded into his lungs rushed into his brain and came out his cock.

Peter brokenly yelled into his orgasm, with his throat stinging, his body on fire, and the sensation of teeth sinking into the side of his neck.

And unbidden, but terrifyingly strong, came the need to bite down, too.  Peter’s eyes were pressed shut as he convulsed and twisted against Johanneson’s body, blindly searching for skin.  Finally, something soft and warm brushed against his nose, and Peter strained forward to clench his teeth over the flesh.  It was boney, muscled and firm -- a hand.

Inside him, the bonding hormones pulsed through his system, waiting for the bite to hold, waiting to lock onto Johanneson as Peter’s lifelong mate.

But the relief, the reprieve from his heat, couldn’t come from just an orgasm.  Peter opened his eyes, desperation still aching in his limbs, and whimpered at what he saw.

The hand in his mouth, in his teeth, didn’t belong to Johanneson.  Standing in front of him, eyes kind but determined, was a bearded, not-so-spangled man that Peter recognized as Steve Rogers.  Captain America was here, in Tony Stark’s penthouse, seeing Peter’s wrecked face, letting Peter succumb to his instinct to bite without allowing the action to ruin Peter’s life.

This was over.

In the sudden clarity of the moment, Peter’s brain must have summoned just enough focus for his suit to finally kick in.  With a clean _schick_ sound of metal on metal, the spindly legs extended from behind Peter’s back, and three of them simultaneously clenched into Johanneson’s sides like a claw.  The Alpha roared against Peter’s neck, biting down harder, as Peter choked in pain. Then, with the kind of decisiveness that Peter could only attribute to his subconscious and a machine, one spider leg darted forward and plunged itself into Johanneson’s stomach.

 _Tony was right about the rut weakening his invincibility_ , Peter thought faintly as Johanneson released his neck and staggered back into Captain America’s outstretched arm.  Peter, for his part, let go of Cap’s hand too, surprised to see it come away bloody. Then again, Peter could feel blood warmly dripping down his neck from his own bite.

In fact, he couldn’t feel much else.

Captain America lowered Johanneson to the floor, where the man was quickly pinned down by what could only have been the Falcon, and turned his attention to Peter.  He looked surprised to see someone so young under the mask.

“Kid, stay with me,” Steve said urgently.  Peter wanted to tell him that Tony Stark had said the exact same thing, but his mouth was no longer working.

The last thing he felt as darkness covered his vision was the relief of the Omega in front of him taking his weight.

 

~~~~

 

Peter blinked awake into a world that looked nothing like the one he had fallen asleep in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have the energy to write a whole summary here. Basically we get some intense moments from both Peter and Wade's perspective.
> 
> If you're wondering why Wade isn't the one to save his baby boy, I need to level with you guys. Peter has been grappling with being an Omega for this whole story. It's kind of the biggest running theme. If Wade burst in and saved him in the end, I felt like that would cheapen Peter's journey. That's why this climax is our baby boy, through and through. And when he does need just a moment of help, of a lifeline, it comes from another Omega. Peter hasn't had a single Omega role model in this entire story, so he needed one.
> 
> PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS. I hope you guys like it.


	27. Gone Anywhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! I hope everyone's Halloween (or Samhain, or Day of the Dead, or what have you) was amazing.
> 
> It's November, and that means NaNoWriMo (where you're supposed to write 50,000 words in one month)! So I'm going to hopefully be finishing up this story fairly quickly. We're in the end game now, as Dr. Strange would say. But in addition to this story, I'm planning to put out short stories throughout the month. Not every day, but whenever I'm satisfied with one. So check out my profile and see my NaNoWriMo collection when I get around to posting it.
> 
> As for this story, I know it's been intense, and I'm SO THANKFUL for everyone who has stuck with it thus far. You guys are rock stars, and you're so supportive. I hope you follow Peter and Wade through to the end (I'm guessing there will be two more chapters after this one, unless I manage to be breathtakingly succinct in the next chapter). If you hate jumping around time-wise, bear with me this chapter. I got a little hoppy.
> 
> THANK YOU AGAIN FOR READING. I LOVE YOU ALL. Please comment -- the comments keep me going! I seriously love reading everything you guys have to say. And if you have any questions, you can drop those below too.

___WADE

 

{ _Oh my Jesus, fuck this so hard._ }

Wade lowered himself down onto a cushionless bench and stared down the excuse for food that he’d made with the few groceries in his fridge.  It might pass for meatloaf, in another dimension. “Shut up, Yellow, you’re not the one eating it.”

[ _You’d think they’d be able to afford something better.  I mean, you’re literally being held by the damn government._ ]

“Don’t remind me.  Canada has betrayed me.  Stabbed in the back, _eh_?” Wade said sarcastically before loading up his fork with the gelatinous mush of meat.  “You break a few zillion laws and suddenly you’re deported and on house arrest. What’s this world even coming to?”

Just as he was about to force his lips around the brown substance, very much hoping he did not see it again later in the toilet, there was a knock at the door of the tiny bungalow that they’d given him to “live” in.  Wade overturned the table, hoping it would scare shitless whatever intern the Canadian government had sent to deliver his groceries or give him paperwork. He admired the splattered meatloaf on the floor and wall for a moment -- { _Looks like a Jackson Pollock painting_ } -- before taking the ten steps to the front door and nearly ripping it off its hinges.

Instead of a trembling little intern, however, a familiar woman with bangs and a smart suit was standing on his doorstep.  She gave him a small, dry smile.

Wade scrunched up his nose, trying to place the woman’s appearance with a name.  “I think I know you. Did I kill somebody you love at one point in time?”

Rather than look intimidated, the woman merely kept her dry smile and held up what looked like a wallet, until it flipped open to reveal a silver badge emblazoned with six letters.

Ah, fuckity fuck.  One of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s lackeys.

“Mr. Wilson, I’m Maria Hill.  May I come in?”

Wade leaned against the door frame, blocking her entrance.  “I don’t know, the Canadian government has me on lockdown because I’m apparently ‘dangerous,’” he said, putting the last word in air quotes.  “Besides, aren’t you a little out of your jurisdiction up in this neck of the woods?”

Agent Hill folded up her badge and slid it back into her pocket, completely unruffled.  “I’ve been given express permission to be here, and I think you’re going to appreciate the outcome for you.”

[ _Honestly, she looks far more competent than any of the fucks we’ve dealt with so far.  Maybe you could be nice._ ]

{ _Or we could flay her and break the abstinence from un-aliving people that we’ve been forced to keep for the last month._ }

Wade ran his eyes up and down the woman, vaguely listen to both of the boxes in his head.  She cocked an eyebrow and said easily, “I’d side with the one that’s telling you to hear me out.”

White and Yellow went silent in his head.  Did she just read his mind?

Stunned, Wade stepped back and let Agent Hill in over the threshold.  She didn’t remove her boots, but they seemed to be immaculately clean as she strode the short distance to the overturned table, gave it a half-glance, and set a manila envelope on the kitchen counter instead.

Wade shut the door and followed her, still dumbfounded.

“I see that house arrest has been agreeing with you,” Agent Hill said sarcastically, gesturing at the meaty substance decorating the wall.  “I’d feel worse, but I think that’s probably about the standard of food that you were used to before, wasn’t it?”

“Look,” Wade growled, “if you came here to rub it in my face that I got kicked out of your fucking country while I was trying to help Spider-Man save your damn golden boy billionaire, then you can fuck right off.”

Agent Hill raised her hands in an appeasing sort of way.  “Hey, hey, I said that you’d appreciate letting me in here, and I’m not a liar.”

She turned and grabbed the manila envelope off the kitchen counter and placed it in Wade’s hands.

  


~~~~~

 

____PETER

 

Peter ran a hand over his Adam’s apple, which, despite his throat fully healing at least three weeks ago, felt almost tender under his fingers.  Tracing the healed skin of his neck had become a nervous motion over the last few weeks of school, and now that he was standing in a cap and gown, two students away from having his name called at graduation, he couldn’t help but feel the faint memory of nearly choking to death in Tony’s penthouse, of feeling Luka Johanneson’s teeth clamp down under his ear.  Behind him, someone coughed anxiously, and he unconsciously lowered his hand back to his side.

Somewhere in the dark back of the auditorium, in the nosebleeds, he knew Aunt May was sitting there, her camera ready.  In the first few rows of the audience, MJ and Ned were grinning up at him, their tassels already flipped to the other side of their caps.

“Peter Benjamin Parker.”

The person behind him nudged the small of his back, and suddenly he was up the few stairs onto the stage, shaking the superintendent’s hand, shaking Principal Morita’s hand, concentrating very hard on putting one foot in front of the other until he was skipping down the steps on the far side and mercifully finding his seat again.

When he’d been sitting in his chair, watching the rest of his classmates file through, for about two minutes, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.  A second later, it vibrated again.

Peter pushed his gown to the side slightly and dug into the pocket of his dress pants, fishing out his phone and ignoring the exasperated sighs of the people around him as the screen dimly lit up in his lap.

The first message was an image, from MJ.  It showed him standing by the side of the stage, his brown hair pressed low onto his forehead by the cap, his hand at his throat, looking petrified.  The text underneath read, **New York’s Nervous Hero** , with a winky face emoji.

Peter backed out of the message, his thumb hovering over the notification “One Unread,” his heart fluttering with the possibility of seeing **DP <3 <3 <3 wit the fine ass** pop up on his phone.

Instead, the second text was from Aunt May.

**I love you.  Uncle Ben and your parents are so proud.  And I know your friends...all your friends...are proud, too.**

Peter overturned his phone and pressed the screen into his thigh to deaden the light.  The last thing he wanted was for anyone to see his face right now.

  


~~~~

 

When Peter came to in a mostly-white room with mostly-white sheets and a beeping heart monitor next to him, he lay there, staring at the ceiling, struggling to piece together what had happened.

It had only been when Tony Stark walked in, his face a mosaic of bruises, that Peter had remembered.

Peter didn’t thrash about or burst into a million questions.  Instead, he just turned his head away from Mr. Stark as his mentor slowly approached the bed, leaned over Peter, and touched the “call nurse” button on the monitor.

He straightened back up, eyes averted as though he were equally afraid to look at Peter, and Peter thought, when he stole a glance, that he could see guilt etched in his mentor’s face.

Dr. Thompson arrived in the room before either of them had managed the guts to say anything.  Peter turned his eyes upward, watching Mr. Stark step back away from his bed to make room for Dr. Thompson.  He didn’t take his eyes off Tony, who lowered himself unsteadily into a chair, until Dr. Thompson’s body blocked his view.

She was wearing a professional poker face, but Peter could see the relief in her eyes.

“How are you feeling?” she asked quickly, searching him for a moment before reading his vitals on the monitor.

Peter opened his mouth, but his throat seemed too dry to speak.  It crossed his mind that he didn’t know how long it had been since he’d been awake -- how long it had been since he’d spoken.  He cleared his throat as best as he could before squeaking out, “Okay.”

And it was the truth.  He felt relatively normal, and seemed to be nowhere near as bandaged up as the last time he’d woken up in Dr. Thompson’s care.  When he turned his head, he could feel some stiff material applied to his neck, but the rest of him seemed to be merely dressed in a hospital gown and his bed linens.  Any hint of the heat that had been wreaking havoc on his body seemed to be gone.

“Do you have any pain?”

Peter shook his head, embarrassed by the weakness of his voice.

“Do you feel drowsy?”

He shook his head again.

Dr. Thompson gave him a small smile.  “We’re not going to count any chickens before they hatch, but...between me and you, it’s pretty safe to say you’re well on your way to making a full recovery.  I’m glad to see you awake.”

Peter swallowed hard and pushed his way through his dry throat.  “How long was I out of it?”

There was a long pause, during which Peter could hear Tony fidgeting a little, before Dr. Thompson said, “About four days.  You fainted in the tower, according to Captain America; you would have woken up earlier, but we had to sedate you and get you on medication.  You had gone into heat shock.”

Peter closed his eyes for a long moment, recalling how desperate he’d been.  He’d sunk so low as to ask Mr. Stark to help him. He’d begged _Luka Johanneson_ to help him.  The thought made his stomach twist with guilt, even though he knew Wade would understand that he hadn’t meant it.

“Because this last heat had such a damaging effect on you, it’s going to be even more important to make sure all of your heats are addressed in a timely manner from here on out.  With an Alpha.”

Peter nodded distractedly.  So, he’d need to make sure that throughout the summer, and even as he started at ESU, Wade would need to be near him when his heat regulators were done each month.  People would probably start thinking of them as being a bonded couple. The other kids at ESU would probably assume they were an item, too. He contained his smile at the idea.

“Where _is_ Deadpool?” Peter suddenly thought, out loud.  He’d only noticed, now, how strange it was that Wade wasn’t with him when he woke up, that Tony was there instead.  Had something gone wrong with his regeneration? Was he in another hospital bed? Tony and Dr. Thompson shared anxious glances, and Peter felt his heart shoot into his throat.

Peter stared at the ceiling as Mr. Stark explained how Deadpool’s body had been collected off the sidewalk, how he’d changed hands, been deported, and ultimately ended up on house arrest in the Canadian countryside.  Even though he could feel his eyes burning, he didn’t cry, not when they explained that there was no way of knowing how long it would be until Wade came back, and not when Dr. Thompson told him that, without the right Alpha, his life could be at risk in heat.  She’d waited for his response, and, getting nothing, she’d handed him a tin of heat suppressant pills and escorted both herself and Tony out of the room.

And Peter had lain there, only finally crying when the sun started to set outside his window.

  


~~~~

 

Two and a half weeks later, he was shrugging off his cap and gown in his bedroom, feeling exhausted.

School had been a nightmare to finish.  Principal Morita had called him into his office when Peter finally came back to school after his stay Dr. Thompson’s care, and had given him what must have been one of the most pitying looks Peter had ever received.  Luckily, the man had apparently negotiated with Peter’s teachers to let him turn in all his assignments late, and he still graduated with flying colors. Of course, getting good grades through the end of the year didn’t really help his social situation.  Alphas in his grade were now either trying to shove him or grope him when teachers weren’t looking, apparently to make up for lost time when they’d thought Peter was a Beta. Only Flash seemed impressed that Peter had somehow kept being an Omega a secret, but Peter caught him staring at him more than once in the few days leading up to graduation.

On top of everything, Peter was now taking heat suppressants daily.  They were in smaller doses than the shots he’d been taking since he was fifteen, but they had most of the same side effects that he’d experienced for years with the injections.  After taking his suppressants in the morning, he felt moody, aggressive, volatile; by mid-afternoon the lethargy and depression started to kick in. Every day seemed like its own rollercoaster.  MJ and Ned tried to keep him happy however they could, but their jokes and offers to spend time with him didn’t change the fact that every evening found him lying in bed with no energy to speak of.  He hadn’t gone on patrol since The Event, even though both of his suits had been refurbished by Mr. Stark in the days following and had been sitting under his bed for at least two weeks.

Now, Peter didn’t even bother to take off his dress pants or nice shirt before he fell onto his bed.

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket, but ignored it.  All of his limbs were heavy. He could almost feel how his exhaustion had been getting worse each day, like his body couldn’t take the way his Omega hormones were getting beaten down by the suppressants.

Normally, he’d have started his Phase 2 regulators by now so he could slowly ramp up for another heat.  Instead, it was a dose of suppressing hormones, day in and day out.

He hadn’t even jerked off recently.

Without much hope, Peter gingerly slid his hand between himself and the mattress and palmed his soft cock.  He barely even felt his body respond as he slowly tried to nudge his erection to life.

Things had been bad.  Without Wade, he could only imagine that he’d be stuck on heat suppressants for the foreseeable future.  Unless he met a superpowered peer in college, but even superpowers didn’t mean that they’d be ready for Peter’s super heats.

The idea of spending his heat with someone other than Wade lodged a sob in his throat.

Peter desperately pushed himself up onto one elbow and slid his knees apart so he could cant his hips into his hand; he forced himself to think about Wade’s chiseled muscles, about Wade’s arms around him, about Wade’s jokes -- anything that could help him feel _something_.

In his body, the suppressants were working against him, numbing his desire and arousal and leaving him trembling with exhaustion.

By the time there was a knock on his door ten minutes later, Peter had given up, rolled onto his side, and taken up staring at the wall.  Although he never told her to come in, he felt May’s hand on his shoulder after a moment.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut.

“I know today was bittersweet.”  She paused, although he could feel in her intonation that she didn’t expect him to say anything.  “I know that these last few weeks have been incredibly difficult, for both of us.”

After Peter had woke up from his four-day sleep, he’d eventually asked if he could see Aunt May, then been informed that she hadn’t been allowed into the high-security building.  He remembered the look on Tony’s face when Peter had demanded that she be brought up to see him. In that moment, anyone looking in would have thought that Peter was the Alpha, and the billionaire high-tailing it out of the room to fetch Aunt May was the Omega.  Within thirty minutes, Aunt May was not only in the building, but negotiating Peter’s release from in-patient care, and within two hours he was in the front seat of her little car while they chugged silently along Queens Boulevard.

He wouldn’t blame her if she never forgave him for everything he put her through, but of course she did.

The edge of the bed dipped slightly as he felt his aunt sit down behind him.  Her hand was still gently on his shoulder, warm and reassuring. He could feel her heartbeat in her thumbprint against his skin.

“Uncle Ben would have given anything in the world to be there today.  So would your parents. They were the kind of people who always shared in the joy of anyone else’s accomplishments.  They would have been so, so proud of you, Peter.”

Tears were threatening to well up in Peter’s eyes.  He simultaneously clutched the sheet under his right hand and reached up with his left to fold his fingers into Aunt May’s.  The energy to respond in words was gone with his ability to feel anything besides depression.

Aunt May’s fingers squeezed around his, maybe encouraged by his acknowledgement of her presence.  She continued on, voice soft.

“I was thinking about what you said to me a couple months back, about Wade.  Even though you were upset to think that he’d bonded with you, I know that the thing you were most upset about was thinking that your love for him wasn’t real.”  The bed dipped again as May shifted and turned towards Peter. “Now, I know I’m just your old aunt and I’m a Beta and I don’t really know anything about what’s going on.  And I know your suppressants are messing with you and kind of sucking the life out of you and that’s really, really shitty. But I can tell that your pain isn’t just because you’re on suppressants, or because you were outed at school, or because of any of the other horrible things you’ve had to deal with.  I know you miss Wade. I just hope that you give him another chance.”

Peter kept his eyes shut tightly, breathing shallowly, willing himself not to cry.  “May, I.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, but it didn’t make his voice sound any less weak when he continued.  “I just don’t know if he’ll ever be able to come back to me.”

May didn’t move the hand from his shoulder, and the way he was clutching it, he wasn’t sure that she could.  But he felt her other hand smooth back his hair from his forehead.

“Don’t give up hope, Peter.”

~~~~

 

Not giving up hope wasn’t very easy.  Although school was out, the weeks without him going on patrol were starting to add up.  Most days, he stayed in a baggy T-shirt and pajama pants, and sometimes he didn’t go outside at all.  When the hot summer sun streamed in through his window, he pulled the shades down.

MJ and Ned didn’t let his withdrawal keep them away.  They, like Aunt May, had almost started treating Peter as though he were ill, which, due to the suppressants, was practically true.  Rather than pressure him to come out and meet them, they frequently turned up at his apartment, holding movies, Lego sets, or sometimes just food.  Ned always seemed to be trying to keep Peter’s spirits up with jokes and games, and MJ’s presence was warm and appreciated, even if sometimes he could feel her eyes on him instead of watching the movie.

For her part, May was being every bit the caregiver that she’d always been.  He’d wake up to a pot of fresh oatmeal on the stove and even if he didn’t eat all day, he knew that she’d bring something home for dinner, even though he could feel the guilt in his stomach at seeing her taking care of him the same way that she had to take care of her patients at work.

As they neared July, Peter could feel the stress of the heat suppressants getting worse.  He was glad that he was alone most mornings. Sometimes the pill he took made his skin crawl, or made him feel like his emotions were uncontrollable.  He hadn’t felt so angsty since he’d been fourteen or fifteen years old.

Part of him didn’t know how he would be able to go to Empire State University.  Even with his free ride and with how smart he knew he was, the fact that getting out of bed sometimes seemed impossible did nothing to assuage his freshman jitters.  What would he do if he had to throw in the towel a few weeks in, unable to finish his homework or motivate himself to go to class?

When he voiced his concerns to Aunt May one night over fast food, she told him not to worry, and that they’d figure it out.  But he could sense the worry in her voice, too. If he lost his scholarship, there was no guarantee they could pay for him to go to college.

Sometimes, it felt like everything was closing in on him.

 

~~~~

 

___WADE

 

“Isn’t it about time that I got back out on the streets?”  Wade propped up one ankle on the opposite knee and leaned back against the metal chair he was sitting in.  Across from the concrete room, Maria Hill was unlocking the door to the hideous cell that he’d traded in his bungalow for.  At least it was a hideous cell in the United States, which was one border closer to New York City.

Agent Hill swiftly closed the door behind her, ignoring the echoing _clang_ that resounded around the facility.  He wasn’t in a prison, just in a holding cell somewhere deep in the basement of a government building.  By the air, he had to guess he was somewhere near Washington, D.C., maybe in Virginia. This was probably where the CIA brought people they *weren’t* illegally interrogating and torturing.

[ _The “weren’t” is in asterisks because we all know they probably totally do that._ ]

{ _Thank you, Captain Obvious._ }

There was only one chair in the miserable little space, so Agent Hill parked it on the shitty mattress he was given to sleep on, which was on a metal frame akin to the one Wade had been blessed with in the Ice Box.

“Let’s be honest, Wade.  If I had my way, you would have been out of my hair a week ago already.  But, this being the government, there are a few bureaucratic hoops to jump through.  Documents to sign. People you have to promise not to kill.”

{ _Woah, woah, woah.  We NEVER promise not to kill people._ }

Wade wrinkled his nose.  “I gotta be honest, Hill.  I’m feeling a little duped, here.  I don’t usually make any damn deals with the government.”

“If you want to be let back into the United States, you better make some deals with S.H.I.E.L.D.  Or you’re going back to Canada.”

“Aren’t you guys corrupt?  Didn’t Cap expose you all as a bunch of Hydra agents?”

It was Agent Hill’s turn to wrinkle her nose.  “We’re not all Nazis, Deadpool. And believe me, we do our very best to keep them out of our organization, and our country, these days.”

[ _They are doing a VERY shitty job.  Anybody ever been to Charleston?_ ]

Wade was very tempted to tell Agent Hill to fuck off.  Ever since she’d come to his bungalow in Canada, he’d given up his fairly mediocre house arrest for a much tighter leash and being bounced around from psychiatric evaluation to torture cell.  He’d come to regard her visits with a mixture of anger and appreciation. She, of course, never did the evaluations. And she talked to him as though he weren’t entirely crazy. Still, she hadn’t gotten him out, yet.

As much as he wanted to just piss her off for another few days, he also couldn’t help but think about Peter.  He’d counted the days since he’d last seen his baby boy, since he’d desperately covered the kid’s face with a gas mask to save his life.  (And, thank God, he DID save Peter’s life. Agent Hill had told him that Spider-Man was taken from Stark’s penthouse alive and given medical treatment.)  Even though he was sure Peter was alive, despite his absence as Spider-Man on the streets (something else Hill had told him about), he also knew that it had now been over a month since he’d seen Peter, and that meant that his baby boy was due for another heat, if not in one already.  The thought of Peter using another Alpha to get him through made him feel very, very bad things.

He wanted to march up to Peter’s apartment, smash the door open, grab whatever Alpha felt the misguided entitlement to stick his dick up his baby boy’s ass, and fling the fucker out the window.  Then he’d show Peter how much he missed him.

“Fine.  Who do I have to promise not to kill?” Wade whined.

Agent Hill’s eyebrows went up, as though she couldn’t believe he was actually agreeing to her terms, before she started ticking off the people on her fingers.  “Well, let’s start off with innocent people, for one -- ”

“Oooh, very PC of you.  If you’d started off with the President or something, the readers might think that S.H.I.E.L.D. is elitist.”

She gave him a stern look.  “Speaking of the President -- ”

“All right, all right.  Just write the list down, otherwise I’m going to forget.  Now give me the papers I need to sign.” Wade stood up from his chair, making sure to stretch dramatically for effect.  “And get me the fuck out of here so I can see my Omega.”

Agent Hill followed his lead and stood up, a little more slowly.  Her eyes suddenly looked wary. “Are you married, Deadpool?”

“Not yet, sweetums.  But Deadpool’s not scared of commitment.  I ain’t afraid to put a ring on it.”

“Do you have children?”

Wade’s insides twisted uncomfortably.  Fuck Hill. She was getting too personal now.  “Hoping to someday, Hill, but that’s really none of your goddamn business, now is it?”

He knew by Agent Hill’s expression that she’d heard the tone of his voice change from cordial to dangerous.  Still, she held her ground. “Actually, it really is our business.”

“Then no, and no.  Happy? Jesus fuck, I want to get out of here and get started on this family you’re so keen to remind me I don’t have.”  Wade folded his arms and turned away. If this lady didn’t follow his answer with something containing the words, “You’re free go to,” then this conversation was over.

Instead, he heard Hill walk toward the door, and the key go back into the lock, and the sliding of metal on the track.

He waited for the sound of it closing, but it didn’t come.

Wade turned around, and Hill was standing in the hallway, her hand on the open door, looking at him expectantly.  “Well?” she said. “You coming out, or what?”

  


~~~~

 

It was strange to remember something so uniform as the texture of a fire escape ladder.  And yet, the second Wade closed his hands around the cool metal outside Peter’s building, his skin seemed to prickle with the memory of it.  He was almost thankful that he’d decided not to wear his suit. When he saw his baby boy, he wanted to see him without looking through a mask.

As he neared the top, Wade started sniffing the air expectantly, trying to catch a whiff of Peter’s spicy, clean, heat scent.  But there was hardly a scent in the air at all, and what he did smell seemed odd and muddled, more like a Beta scent. Maybe the kid’s aunt was cleaning his room or something.  Wade made a mental note to try not to scare anyone to death by bursting in through the window. He’d go for a nice, quiet, burglar-style slide in.

Strangely enough, nobody was even in Peter’s room.  And Peter’s room didn’t even smell like Peter.

{ _Holy fuck, the kid moved out while we were away.  He packed up and left. Moved across the country._ }

[ _I’d laugh if he moved to Canada.  Irony._ ]

{ _Don’t JOKE ABOUT THIS, WHITE.  THIS IS SERIOUS._ }

[ _Oh my God, calm the fuck down.  Peter hasn’t gone anywhere. This room looks exactly the same as the last time we saw it.  His backpack is right there on the floor._ ]

White had a point.  Peter’s things were still littered around the room, and the bed looked very much lived-in.  Wade crouched down as he closed the window and glanced under the lower bunk. He could see a hint of red and blue -- Peter’s suit.  There was no way the kid had gone anywhere without that.

Since it was obvious that Peter wasn’t in his room, however, Wade had no choice but to check out the rest of the apartment.  He twisted the doorknob as gingerly as possible, still hoping not to scare the bejeezus out of Aunt May, and made his way into the hall, noting that the whole apartment seemed to be dark and quiet, and nobody seemed to be home.

When he reached the living room, he realized that wasn’t quite true.  The television was on, flickering an old sepia toned movie across the dark room.   _Nosferatu_ , if his movie knowledge was anywhere as good as Peter’s was.  The couch had been turned toward the television, and at first glance, it seemed like the couch was empty.  Then Wade saw the tuft of brown hair sticking out from under the blanket.

Peter was lying on the couch, so close to the edge of it that he was half-draped off the side.  His eyes were closed, his pale skin looking ghostly in the sepia light from the movie. Dark circles purpled the undersides of his eyes, and his chapped lips were parted slightly.  If it weren’t for the slow up and down motion of his breathing, he’d almost look like he was dead.

Wade shook the thought out of his head and carefully slid himself down over the back of the couch until he was right behind his baby boy.

Peter was sleeping so deeply that he didn’t even stir as Wade pulled the blanket over both of them and kissed the back of Peter’s neck, where he’d bitten down on the kid so long ago.  Peter’s smell was completely off, but he felt the same. Relishing the feeling of Peter’s warm body in front of him, Wade pulled Petey close, rested his head on the arm of the couch, and let the movie play out while his baby boy slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some special NaNoWriMo news:  
> Got a short fanfic story you'd like to see me write, especially in the MCU (and especially with Peter Parker)? Drop me a prompt in my email: leafygreenqueen773@gmail.com. You can suggest anything, but I can't promise I will take all suggestions. Doesn't hurt to ask, though!


	28. All That Matters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this, just two chapters left! I wanted to round out the story at a nice 30-part saga.
> 
> If you're still reading, I very much appreciate it. After all, I've grown to really appreciate these characters in the context of my story. And, if you've been tired of all the intense climactic chapters, enjoy this beautiful chapter of smut and fluff, and Peter finally coming to terms with his identity.
> 
> I love you all! Comments are everything <3

 

___PETER

 

It was one of those nights that looked like Peter was going to be alone.  MJ and Ned were both busy -- Ned was going to a movie with his parents and MJ was out of town visiting a relative in Massachusetts -- and Aunt May was working a late shift at the hospital.  She’d made spaghetti in the morning, actually creating a gourmet red sauce with vegetables (“because you need nutrition other than cheeseburgers,” she’d said), and Peter had even managed to microwave himself a plateful before crashing on the couch to watch something.  He’d seen  _ Nosferatu _ before, but it seemed like a good movie to fall asleep to.  So when he was done with his spaghetti, he stretched out on the couch, resting his cheek against the edge of the cushion.  The warmth of food in his stomach, mixed with his exhaustion, put him to sleep before he’d even seen the vampire show up on screen.

He wasn’t sure what time it was when he felt like he drifted back into consciousness, but through bleary eyelids he could see that  _ Nosferatu _ had been replaced by a Charlie Chaplin movie.  Peter raised his arm heavily and fumbled around on the table until he found the remote.  When he turned the television off, it plunged the room into darkness.

He lowered his head back to the couch cushion and felt sleep threaten to take him again.  Everything on him was constantly so exhausted that sometimes, when he woke in the middle of the night, he wasn’t sure if he was even awake or still dreaming.  So when he nudged his hips backwards to get more comfortable and felt a solid warmth behind him, he barely registered it.

The warm breath behind his neck felt comforting and familiar.

“Wade,” Peter murmured.

For a moment, there was silence, and then an answer in a reverent, gentle tone.  “Yeah, baby boy. I’m here.”

It was a dream, wasn’t it?  Weeks and weeks of nothing, and then Wade was lying with him on his living room couch, as though everything were normal, as if they were happy and domestic and adorable.  Peter could feel Wade’s arm pulling him close, and he thought he could cry with the realness of it. He wanted this so badly.

“I missed you.”  Peter wasn’t sure if he said it, or if Wade did.  Or if they said it simultaneously. So Peter didn’t say anything else for a long moment.

Finally, Wade whispered, almost inaudibly, “Go back to sleep, Peter.  I’m here now. I’ve got you.”

Drowsiness pulled at Peter, and it was tempting to give in to it.  But part of Peter was afraid to sleep, afraid that when he woke up, he’d realize this had all been a dream, and he’d wasted it.

“No,” Peter answered.  It felt so much like a dream.  He needed to know. “Touch me, please, Wade.”

“Are you sure, baby boy?  I’m in no rush.”

“Please.”

And he felt the hand holding him close drift from his arm, down over his chest, down to his abdomen, where it gently pressed against his skin and muscles.  Peter shivered, his eyes still closed. The room was dark, and quiet, and warm.

Wade’s hand moved lower, brushing like a whisper over the fabric of his pajama pants.  Peter was soft, his body having neglected to let him feel sexual pleasure in over a month.  Yet, if there was any time that he could maybe get hard, it was this late at night, when it had been over twelve hours since he’d taken his suppressant pill.  The lack of warmth at his front gave Wade pause, though.

“We don’t need to go fast, Petey.  We can wait until morning.”

_ Listen to him.  Sleep, _ part of him thought.  But the other part was determined.  “I haven’t been able to...I’m on suppressants and I haven’t...not since I saw you last.”  Peter’s brain and mouth didn’t seem to be able to form coherent sentences, but he felt Wade go stiff with understanding behind him.

“You’re on heat suppressants again?”

Peter sighed through his nose.  “I just want to feel... _ something _ .  I feel dead.”

The hips behind him pressed forward until Peter felt the warmth of Wade against his ass.  Wade’s hand played with the drawstrings at the front of Peter’s pants, and then he felt fingers dip below his waistband.

“I’ve got you, baby boy.”

In the darkness, he felt sensitive, even if his body seemed slow to react to Wade’s hand.  Peter melted back into the man behind him until their breathing was almost in rhythm together.  Inside Peter’s pajamas, Wade carefully ran his fingers over Peter’s skin, taking his time, not offended by the lack of an erection.

“I missed you so damn much,” Wade breathed.  Peter could tell just how much Wade missed him by the hard line of Wade’s dick against Peter’s ass.  “And I’m so glad to see you alive and well and not in the afterlife. Plus, I thought for sure you’d be in heat and I’d have to pry some other Alpha off of you.”

The comment about the afterlife made Peter’s insides twist with guilt a little.  He swallowed and said clearly, “No, I’m just here with you.” Wade burrowed his nose into Peter’s hair affectionately, and Peter pressed his hips back into Wade as the deft fingers continued their tease.  He could feel the start of his arousal now, just tingling under the surface.

If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up.

The minutes crawled by, patient and quiet, the silence of the apartment broken only by the faint noises of the city outside, the ticking of a clock somewhere in the kitchen, and their measured breaths.  Wade’s hand was consistent and teasing against his shaft, which was slowly stiffening in front of him. It had been so long since he’d been able to get off that every sensation seemed amplified. Peter clutched the edge of the couch for good measure, still feeling suspended between wakefulness and sleep.  He let his eyes close as the warmth between his legs increased.

“You  _ are _ going to fuck me, aren’t you?” he murmured weakly into the dark.

For the first time since it had started its ministrations, the hand on Peter’s cock stopped moving.  “What did you say?” Wade asked cautiously behind Peter’s ear.

Peter shifted so that his hips were pressed back even farther against Wade’s front, eliciting a little groan from the man.  “I’m not in heat, but...please, I want….” Peter breathed.

With a shudder, Wade’s hand started working Peter again, this time with a bit more pressure.  The warm, tingling sensation that had started in his groin was now making its way up his spine.  Peter felt his own smile against the couch cushion.

Behind him, Wade had moved his other hand.  Then, the sounds of wet skin and copious amounts of saliva met Peter’s ears, sending another thrill of almost-foreign arousal up his nerves.  When slicked fingers nudged between Peter’s ass and his pajama pants, he felt a punch of anxiety mixed with excitement that had to be classified as the nearest thing to emotion he’d felt in over a month.  Wade carefully found his entrance, which was completely devoid of his natural heat lubrication, and pressed the pad of one finger against the muscle.

The hand on Peter’s half-hard cock began to stroke him in earnest as the finger sank in to the first knuckle.

“Oh my God.”  Peter turned his head down against the couch.  He tried to relax his muscles as Wade pressed in more, creating a burning stretch that brought a prickling sweat to Peter’s hairline.  It was dulled by the heat he was now feeling from his cock, which was getting firmer and firmer under Wade’s strokes. It wasn’t happening easily, but he was finally the latent desire he’d been desperate to feel was starting to bubble to the surface.  The realization made him push his hips back against Wade’s hand, causing his insides to burn as Wade’s finger went in to the hilt.

Wade made a noise of protest, but Peter’s groan was louder.  The sooner Wade understood that he wasn’t going to break Peter, the better.  With one hand, he reached back and took a soft hold of Wade’s forearm, trying to intimate that he was ready for more.  Wade didn’t hold back; two more fingers begged for entrance, then, glacially slow, they breached Peter with a mouth-watering burn.

“You’re...so gorgeous,” Wade said, panting lightly, tickling Peter’s scalp with his breath.  “I want to make you feel so good. And I mean...not just tonight. Like, every night. Every day.  For fucking ever.”

As Wade spoke, his fingers began to slide in and out of Peter.  The sensation seemed to pull Peter’s breath right out of his chest.  For a few minutes, they ebbed and flowed against each other, just working Peter in the kind of slow and easy way that they never could when he was in heat.  They could take their time, now. There was no biology surging them forward; the suppressants made everything drag, causing their movements to be languid, making Peter’s erection take ages to come to fullness.

It was probably the fact that he grew aroused so slowly that made the first drop of precum feel so mind-blowing.  Wade’s fingers found the moisture right away, spreading it over the head of Peter’s cock and down the shaft as he continued to finger him.  Peter jerked his hips at the sensation, and that response earned him three fingers bearing down on his prostate, hard.

“Fuck,” Peter choked.  “Can you find that spot -- the one that Omegas have?”

Wade’s fingers twisted in him, and Peter bit his lip as he felt another spot of precum at his tip.  “Well, you’re not in heat, baby boy, so it’s a little harder to find it. But I think it’s right  _ here _ .”

On the last word, three firm fingertips rubbed against something in Peter that made his whole spine feel like light.  He twisted his fist in the blanket, burying his face once more in the cushions to soften his groan. Wade’s fingers didn’t stop, either.  Little pulses of pleasure began to radiate from deep inside Peter’s body. The thought of Wade, an Alpha -- practically  _ his _ Alpha -- taking care of him in such a personal way, touching him in a way that only an Omega could be touched, made him swallow down a sudden surge of emotion.  More emotion than he’d felt in ages. He bit down a whimper, trying to master himself, even though deep down he wanted to fall apart.

“I love touching you like this, Petey.”  Wade’s voice sounded breathless. “And I love taking it slow.  But I’m gonna blow my load in a minute here. Do you want me to be in you?”

Peter pulled his face away from the cushion and opened his eyes to the dark room.  He was trembling, a little, and for a moment the darkness was disconcerting. It seemed as though the light shooting up his spine should have been filling the air around him.  But at the same time, the fact that it was just him and Wade, and even his spider-sense found the other distractions minimal, made it all the better.

He panted the word that he’d said to so many others in desperation, but now to Wade in complete earnest: “Please.”

Suddenly, the fingers inside him pulled out in one breathtaking pull, and a second later, the hand on his dick reached up and palmed his cheek, turning his face upward.  Then Wade was kissing him, his mouth warm and safe and dizzying as it searched Peter like he was an exotic artifact to be explored. The kiss was heady and overwhelming, and it made the sudden sensation of Wade’s cock thrusting into him feel like a head rush.  He could taste the salt on Wade’s lips, could feel the texture of the scars on every part of his skin.

The kissing didn’t stop, even as Wade brought his hand back to Peter’s cock and began to stroke him evenly and slowly.  As though all his actions were set to a metronome, Wade’s hips rolled forward in time to the way he was touching Peter. The fullness that accompanied Wade’s presence in his body was incredible.  It was the first time he had Wade completely in him, without the empty loneliness of being in the throes of a heat.

As much as he was appreciative of the lack of emptiness, at the absence of his heat, there was still something missing.  The suppressants had never been enjoyable -- not when he started taking them at fifteen, and not now that they were smaller daily doses.  But while he recognized that the misery of the suppressants came from the side effects of aggression and depression, it was only now dawning on him that a big part of the  _ unfeelingness _ wasn’t just a side effect.  It was the desired effect -- suppressing his Omega hormones, his Omega traits.  It was smothering a part of him, a part of who he was. Even if it was a part of him that he’d never wanted to claim before.

Perhaps, until now.

Because when he was with Wade, he wasn’t just Peter Parker.  He wasn’t just Spider-Man. He was an Omega, the second half to his Alpha.  Falling into his full identity was one of the ways in which he could really connect with Wade.  And now, even though the physical pleasure was rolling through him, lovingly stirred up by his Alpha, there was just  _ something not there _ that seemed to block him from tumbling over the edge.

Peter clenched his eyes shut and shook his head minutely.  There was no use. Even after all the time Wade had spent slowly building Peter up to a full erection, Peter couldn’t fathom a way that he was actually going to come.  Not when it felt like a whole piece of him was gone.

“Wade -- ” he started apologetically, but the Alpha cut him off.

“Shh, baby boy.  You’re doing so well.”  Wade’s free hand, still slick with saliva, curled between Peter’s shoulder and the couch, enveloping him.  “I need you to do something for me.”

Peter didn’t respond verbally.  He just found Wade’s hand in front of him and curled his fingers in the mercenary’s.

“Peter.  I love you, baby boy.  All you have to do is just  _ let go _ .  Okay?   _ Let go. _ ”

Wade dropped his voice low, intoxicatingly low, into his Alpha tone.

The command seemed to burrow deep into Peter, and then, like a bloom out from under winter snow, he felt it: the desire to please Wade, to do what the Alpha told him to do.

A purely Omega desire, smouldering there inside him.  A beacon of that part of him, surviving inside, despite the suppressants.  He could cling to it. Use it like a life raft. Lose himself in his desire to please Wade, and by doing so, find his own release.

“ _ Yes _ .”

Peter gave into the desire with reckless abandon.

His head tilted back as he felt his orgasm bubble into him like lava, building hot and pressurized behind his dick.  The fullness of Wade inside him only seemed to make the pressure tighten until it threatened to combust. Peter gripped Wade’s hand for purchase.

He felt something warm, soft, and wet at the back of his neck.  He held his breath, expecting Wade to bite down, but instead all he felt was a reverent kiss, punctuated by the uneven puffs of air through Wade’s nose as the grip on Peter’s cock tightened.

Like a wave, Peter’s orgasm rose in him and broke the dam of pressure.  It rolled through his core, through his extremities, and he shook apart in Wade’s arms.  He could feel Wade pulsing inside him, wet heat filling him, and the sigh that escaped Peter’s lips was all pleasure and contentment.

When Peter had asked Wade to touch him, he hadn’t been sure if he was even awake, trapped somewhere in a limbo between a dream and reality.

Now, the two seemed interchangeable.

As the inevitable exhaustion that he’d been staving off crept its way back into his limbs, he fuzzily brought Wade’s hands to his lips and returned the kiss that Wade had planted on the back of his neck, just below his hairline.

“Petey.”  Wade’s voice was still alert, though it seemed thick with post-coital bliss.  “You deserve to be happy forever and ever and ever,” he sighed.

Peter furrowed his brow, barely able to keep his eyelids up.  If Wade wanted to keep Peter happy for the rest of his life, there was one simple way to do it.

“Then don’t ever leave,” he murmured before closing his eyes.

 

~~~~~

 

____WADE

 

“So, wedding bells, huh?”

Weasel’s bar was packed tonight, full of no-good people ordering cheap drinks before they went out and did no-good things.  Dopinder was even around somewhere, having taken up hanging out with Weasel while Wade did his time on Canadian house arrest.  

Wade forced his giddy smile down as he wiped his mouth off on the sleeve of his sweatshirt, then slid his beer mug back over the bar.  Weasel caught it, looked in it, and drank the swill out of the bottom before tossing the mug unceremoniously into the sink behind him.

“You know, usually I’d tell you to mind your own damn business, Weasel, but the truth is that I’d slap a ring on that man so fast.”  Weasel raised his eyebrows and leaned his elbow on the bar. “You don’t have to look so surprised about it,” Wade said defensively. “I’m not afraid of commitment.”

Weasel shrugged.  “I’m not surprised.  I knew you’d fall in love with that kid.  I saw him swinging by on Fifth Avenue the other day and let me say, he looks bendy as fuck.  Probably a lot of fun in the sack.”

{ _ WHY is this man our best friend? _ }

Wade frowned.  “What the hell were YOU doing on Fifth Avenue?”  His curiosity piqued when his friend didn’t answer the question immediately, but instead straightened up and busied himself with cleaning the goddamn soft drink dispenser.  “You pry into my life all the time. You get to tell me what you were doing on Fifth Avenue. Did you have a job? Were you going to hold up the Apple store or something?”

Weasel rolled his eyes, then bent forward.  “If you must know, I  _ occasionally _ like the finer things in life.”

“Such as?”

“Goddamn it, Wade, if you tell anyone...I went to the Met, okay?”

Wade raised his non-existent eyebrows.  “ _ You _ went to the Met?”  He leaned in closer when Weasel gave him an alarmed look and held a finger to his lips.  “You paid twenty-five dollars to spend the day looking at  _ art _ ?  Who  _ are _ you?”

“Who said I paid twenty-five dollars?”

Now that sounded like Weasel.  [ _ That’s why we’re friends, isn’t it? _ ]

“Well, back to my far more interesting life,” Wade said pointedly.  “Spidey and I weren’t considering marriage yet, but we were considering bonding.”

“Is there are reason you’re only considering it, and haven’t done it yet?”

“Well, we’re both super-fast healers, so the bites don’t take.  But I called up our doc and she’s going to send me a batch of bonding hormone.  Once it arrives, we’ll be good to go.”

“And then our little Wade Wilson will be -- ” Weasel snapped his fingers for effect, “ -- off the market!”  

Wade pushed himself up off his chair.  It was already getting late and he’d promised Peter that he’d pick up tacos and bring them over, since Peter still was having a hard time getting out of bed due to the heat suppressants.  “But so will Spider-Man, and you tell me if that ain’t the luckiest score in the history of humankind.”

Weasel looked contemplative for a second, then said, “I’d probably prefer Black Widow.  But you better watch your back. Every Alpha in New York would want that twink if they found out he was an Omega.”

“That might be true,” Wade said as he backed out of the door, “but there’s only one Alpha in New York that loves him like I do.”

  
  


~~~~~

 

___PETER

 

Now that Wade was back, things were looking up.

He was still on his suppressants, which had been his own decision, despite Wade being available to help him through a heat.  They’d been talking about bonding, though, and Peter didn’t want to struggle through one more torturous heat if he could help it.  They’d called up Dr. Thompson, who had seemed very supportive of the idea, and had explained exactly how bonding with Wade could help Peter relieve some of the pain and emptiness he felt.  She’d even said that she’d send some bonding hormone and an administration kit over. So far it had been a few days, but she’d told them that it wasn’t going to be expedited shipping or anything.

In the meantime, Peter had precious few complaints.

Ned, MJ, and Aunt May were as supportive as ever, but they hadn’t been able to take care of Peter full-time, and he hadn’t expected them to.  Ned and MJ were both ramping up for college, and they were trying to do a lot of last-minute activities in New York City to enjoy themselves before they’d be spreading out to their respective new homes.  Still, they had faithfully visited Peter whenever they could, and he was grateful for that. As soon as he could get off his suppressants and get his heat out of the way, he was planning to take them both to Coney Island to thank them for all they’d done for him.  It was hard to believe the three of them would be split up come fall, but at the same time, Peter was so proud of everything they’d accomplished. High school hadn’t always been easy, especially not for him. Yet, here they were, on the other side of it, becoming adults.

Aunt May, of course, was relieved that Wade had managed to make his way through whatever justice system existed for enhanced individuals (Wade had said something about S.H.I.E.L.D. and then had stuffed his face with a taco when Peter had asked for details).  And, while she didn’t say as much, Peter could also tell she was relieved with how much food Wade had been bringing over recently. He knew that the bills were never easy and that Aunt May worked exceedingly hard just to make ends meet. So the fact that Wade was showing up almost every evening with takeout from a different restaurant (and bringing enough that May could eat with them) was probably a little nicer than Peter even gave the mercenary credit for.

What entirely blew Peter’s mind, however, was that Wade hadn’t really  _ left _ since he’d shown up several nights back.  Sure, he’d popped out briefly and let May have her space and everything, but while Ned, MJ, and Aunt May weren’t available to be with him, Wade was there.  He seemed to have made taking care of Peter his life’s work. And Peter didn’t really mind. The suppressants truly did make him feel so poorly that he was sure that his energy levels were on-par with someone with terminal illness.  His neighbors definitely thought he’d been diagnosed with cancer or something. A squat little woman who lived halfway down the hall even brought Aunt May a casserole one night. May had recounted how the woman had tried very hard to catch a glimpse of what she’d probably thought was Peter on his deathbed and she’d given May a very sympathetic look and told her she could bring more food if they needed it.

All in all, the fact that Wade was there to lift him out of bed when Peter didn’t have the energy to do it seemed to make life more bearable.

In the evenings, Wade had taken to pushing up the window as far as it would go, setting up lawn chairs on the fire escape, and helping Peter climb through his window to sit out on it while the sun was getting low.  It was generally horribly hot and humid, but once in a while, a breeze would lift Peter’s hair and make him close his eyes. He definitely missed being Spider-Man.

“They probably don’t miss me, though,” Peter said ruefully one evening.

Wade shot him a look.  He was wearing a T-shirt, rather than the normally ever-present hoodie, probably because it was like 95 degrees outside.

“Baby boy, are you kidding?  The people of New York don’t like admitting a damn thing, but they miss you.  I hear people on the street mention you  _ all _ the damn time.  It would make me jealous, if I weren’t the one who gets to take you home in the evening.”

Peter bit his lip.  “Take me home? Wade, I haven’t even left my home in like, two months.”

“Yeah, but I still get to be here with you.  The people of New York wish they were so lucky.”

A slightly delirious image of hundreds of New Yorkers crammed into Peter’s apartment swam in front of his eyes, and he shook the thought away with a small smile.  “I’ll get back out there. I’m not done with the suit, not by a long shot. I just wish I fucking felt better.”

His hand was on the arm of his lawn chair, and he felt a warm pressure on it suddenly.  Wade’s hand was on top of his. “You will feel better, Petey. We’re going to get you off these suppressants and back to your normal self.  And when the bonding hormone kit gets here, we can...you know, decide for sure if that’s what you want.”

“Well, what do  _ you _ want, Wade?”

The light breeze suddenly picked up for a moment, and Peter felt his hair dance in the wind before it died down.  He looked over at Wade, feeling a little weak, from both the suppressants and the conversation. 

Wade was staring at him.  “Baby boy, if I could go back and do it all over again, I would have found a way to bond with you the very first time.  With your permission, of course,” he added quickly. “I swear I fell in love with you the first time I ever saw you. We’ll also just say that thank God Tom Holland was nineteen when he portrayed you at fifteen because the thirst is real but this ain’t that kind of fanfiction.”

Peter scrunched up his nose.  “Who’s Tom Holland?”

Wade waved his hand passively.  “Don’t worry about it. I’m just shooting the breeze with the boxes.”

“Oh.  Say hi for me, won’t you?”

They sat there, holding hands, for what seemed like a long time.  Or, at least to Peter, it was. Even sitting out on the fire escape seemed to pull energy from him.  He could feel a deep ache settling into his muscles and his neck hurt just from supporting his head for so long.

Suddenly, Wade was standing up next to him, and Peter felt his heart sink at the prospect of going back inside.  He felt like he’d squandered an innumerable amount of summer evenings already. While everyone else got to be outside, eating ice cream, walking in Central Park, enjoying the day, Peter barely got to spend time out on his fire escape.  

But Wade didn’t take him back inside.  Instead, he bent over, slid one hand behind Peter’s back and the other under his knees, and lifted Peter out of his lawn chair as easily as if he were a doll.  Then Wade simply sat back down in his own chair, holding Peter to his chest.

It was a little too warm for such close bodily contact, but Peter was so exhausted that he didn’t care.  He let his head fit into the crook of Wade’s neck and breathed in the scent of his partner.

He had been questioning, a little, whether he truly wanted to bond with Wade or not, or if he’d just decided that bonding was the only way to escape some of the torment that came with being in heat.  Bonding was serious -- a massive commitment, and if he and Wade decided they didn’t want to be partners anymore, it could take an incredible amount of time to finally break down the bond. It wasn’t something he wanted to rush into for the sake of having easier heats.

Thinking back to how MJ and Ned had thought of the situation, back when they were all eating ice cream in the park together, Peter understood why his friends would have been horrified at the idea that he’d almost bonded with a dangerous mercenary like Deadpool.  Especially when they’d only been together for two heats -- a little over a month.

But the reality was, he’d known Deadpool longer than that.  He’d met Deadpool ages ago, and they hadn’t exactly been strangers.  It always seemed that when Peter was facing his worst foes, Deadpool had been there, trying to help (even to Peter’s standards, which involved avoiding killing whenever possible).  His friends were also wrong about how Deadpool was just a dangerous mercenary. The very fact that Deadpool  _ hadn’t _ wanted to take the job of helping Peter through his heats, despite having joked about Peter’s ass for ages, was indicative of the truth -- that the mercenary did care about Peter and hold him in high regard.  The fact that Deadpool had taken the job anyway was indicative of the same truth. Despite his initial misgivings, Peter was so glad that nobody else had been able to fill those shoes. 

Now, as Wade curled Peter to his chest, holding him so that he could enjoy being outside while falling asleep, Peter felt the same sort of affection for the man.  He cared about Wade, even if he hadn’t always acted like it. Guilt flooded into his chest suddenly.

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispered.

Wade had been very quietly humming to himself, but his tune dropped off.  There was a stillness in the air that hadn’t seemed to be there before. “Sorry for what?”

God, Peter deserved to be crying right now, to be on his knees in front of Wade.  But the suppressants made him too numb to feel the emotion choking his throat like it should.  Instead, he just stared at the railing of the fire escape, where a small, delicate-looking spider was dangling fitfully in the breeze.  “For everything,” Peter mumbled. “For trying to break things off, for not giving you a proper chance from the start.”

Wade’s hands were splayed across Peter’s back, holding him tightly to the man’s thick chest.  “Baby boy, I’m not going to lie. When you told me you didn’t want me to be your Alpha, I was more torn up about that than anything I could remember.  I remember thinking you were dangerous. Like the way your smell gets, when you’re not in heat. Except now -- your suppressant smell is just teenager that hasn’t showered in two days.”

Hearing even Wade admit that Peter had hurt him was like a punch to the gut.  Peter pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Even with the suppressants, he felt like crying.

“But I realized then that the reason you were dangerous to me was because I’d given you the power to be.  It’s not like we were sworn partners or even in a relationship. I was just the Alpha that had agreed to help you through your heats, and you had every right to be pissed thinking that I’d taken advantage of you, and you acted accordingly.  I was torn up because I wanted more.” Wade swallowed with some difficulty, loudly against Peter’s ear. “You know, less  _ Friends with Benefits _ and more  _ Romeo and Juliet _ .”

“Romeo and Juliet are both children who meet, fuck, and die within like two days,” Peter mused.

“Love is weird,” Wade said simply.

The sun was creeping lower to the horizon, though they still had at least an hour of daylight left.  Peter’s powers were slightly compromised by how tired he’d perpetually been for the last two months, but he could hear kids playing at the street level below.  Birds were noisily chirping away as they tried to find their place to roost for the night in the few trees spattered around the neighborhood. It almost felt perfect, except…

“I also...I mean...basically tried to hook up with a ton of people.”

Wade breathed a laugh through his nose.  “Are you talking about your friend at school?  Whose leg you came on?”

Peter groaned, fisting his hand in Wade’s shirt.  “That was mortifying. Plus I had just found out that she’s liked me for a long time, too.  She slept in my bed for a couple nights over the weekend because she had no other place to go, and my senses got overwhelming, and I even popped a boner right into her back, I’m pretty sure.”

Wade’s chest was shaking with laughter.  “Oh my God, you’re such a teenage boy.”

“Yeah, but...but you weren’t there when I was in heat in Mr. Stark’s penthouse, and we were tied up and I was like... _ dying _ with heat, and I asked him to….”  He couldn’t even finish his sentence.  “And then I even fucking asked  _ Johanneson _ .”

Peter couldn’t say more.  He buried his face in Wade’s chest and waited for judgment.  He hadn’t admitted to Wade before how he’d begged for relief when he’d been in the throes of his heat, how he’d begged Luka Johanneson, of all people.

A scarred finger reached under Peter’s chin and fished him up.  “Hey, Petey, look at me.”

It took a long moment, but Peter found the strength to look Wade in the eyes.

“I.  Do not.  Blame. You,” Wade enunciated.

“But -- ”

“Listen.  Do you like me?  Do you want me when you’re in heat?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, of course.”

“Do you want me now, when you’re not in heat?”

Peter stared at Wade’s round, brown eyes.  “Yeah,” he breathed, quietly honest.

“Then that is all that matters to me.”

Wade’s skin was golden in the low sunlight as he tilted Peter’s chin up a little more, bent low, and pressed a kiss into Peter’s lips.  Peter relaxed into it, letting Wade break it off whenever he wanted. It lasted for what seemed like a long time.

When Peter curled back down into Wade’s arms, his eyes fell on the little spider that had been dangling in the breeze.  It had managed to climb its way back into its web, which was small, but intricate, and sturdy.

“Come on, baby boy, let’s get some food in you and then get to bed.”

Peter gave a small nod, and then Wade was standing up, arms still around Peter, and the mercenary somehow managed to get them both in through Peter’s window and into his room.

“You might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Peter yawned.

“I think my heart just had an orgasm,” Wade responded, and the joke aside, the giddiness sounded real.

Wade didn’t put Peter down until they got to the kitchen table, and by the time Aunt May got home twenty minutes later, Wade was well into making a massive dinner of eggplant parmesan.  The overwhelming drowsiness of the evening had settled into Peter’s limbs, and with the side of his head against the table, he watched Wade work through half-closed lids. 

The food was incredible, as it always was.  Sometimes Peter thought that cooking might actually be one of Wade’s superpowers.

And if cooking was one of Wade’s superpowers, then cuddling definitely had to be.  After he cleared up the dishes, he gently helped Peter to his feet, let Peter lean on his shoulder while Peter brushed his teeth, and as the room swam in Peter’s eyes, he could feel Wade helping him into his pajamas.

“I’m so lame,” Peter mumbled as Wade held the leg of Peter’s pants open for Peter to blearily step into.

“Are you kidding me?” Wade asked incredulously.  “One, you’re amazing. And two, I’d do this for the rest of my life, baby boy.  Gladly.”

Peter had always fallen asleep more easily when he felt safe.  So, with Wade right next to him, his eyes closed the moment he hit the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that I'm also doing NaNoWriMo right now (trying to write 50,000 words of content in a month), so that's why this chapter was so long to come out. I've been working on a number of other short stories. Go check out the one I just put out today, The Devil All the Time. Thank you, and thanks for the comments and kudos!


	29. Born Ready

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Publishing this now because it's been a hella long time since you guys got anything from me, and I didn't want anybody to think I'd abandoned this fic. (I'm not going to abandon any of my works, for the record. I just don't think I could throw my baby out into the void without giving it the legs to stand on its own, if you know what I mean.)
> 
> I could throw around a bunch of excuses for why it's been pretty much a month since I published anything, but you all know that it was December and there are holidays and that I have a new job and I go to the gym five days a week, so what more can I say? Except that I was also sitting on this chapter for a LONG time because I wanted to publish it simultaneously with chapter 30. Instead, I'm giving you something to tide you over, and I HOPE chapter 30 will be here before the end of the year. Fingers crossed. I just need a good few hours on it.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all had an incredible holiday season. I was thinking about you all and sending you good wishes the whole time!

 

___PETER

  
  


“If you’d have told me earlier, I would have thrown you a bachelor party!” Ned protested distractedly.  He pulled his arm back, swung it low, and released the skeeball. The scuffed-up white sphere thudded heavily against the backboard before rolling down into the “zero points” hole.  The machine gave an unenthusiastic beep and spit out ten red tickets.

Peter bent down and tore them off.  “I think you’ve finally got enough to buy a plastic spider ring.  You know, to remember me by.”

“Shut up.  I’ll be back in Queens for every single break, don’t worry.  Besides, you’ll be busy enough with your hubby.”

Peter folded his arms.  “Okay, first of all, we’re not getting married.  Second of all, it’s not like I’m dropping everything and becoming a house Omega.  I’m going to ESU, like I planned, and I’m going to graduate valedictorian, like I planned.”

“Don’t let your head get too big for your mask,” MJ said from behind him.  Peter turned around and caught what looked like a melancholy expression before it lightened into her usual blank, bored look.  She was holding a bottle of water she'd just gone to get from the food court.

Ned stuffed his tickets into one pocket, and dug around for tokens in his other pocket.  “Hey, are you going to... _ you know _ ,” he said importantly, dropping his voice, “go out there again?”  He gestured vaguely to the doors of the arcade, as though he were inquiring as to whether Peter would ever venture out into the parking lot again, but Peter knew what he meant.  He was asking if Peter would ever be able to pick up his superhero mantle again.

Peter tried not to feel offended that Ned would even insinuate that he could be done being Spider-Man.  “Duh. I just have to get the rest of these suppressants out of my system. Dr. Thompson said that it would take like three days before they’re fully out.  But I have like twice as much energy as I had yesterday, so I think it’s safe to say I’ll be back on patrol as soon as my heat is over.”

They made their way through the arcade, which was normally too loud and overwhelming for Peter to enjoy, but he was at a weird sweet spot with how much medication was still left in his system.  He hadn’t taken a suppressant this morning, so it had now been almost a day and a half since his last dose. Already his energy was coming back, but the suppressants were still dampening his senses enough that he could handle the arcade today with some finesse.

MJ grabbed Peter’s arm and pointed to the air hockey table.  “I’m going to kick your ass on this.”

Ned grinned, handed Peter a couple tokens, and sat down in a chair to watch.  MJ slipped her own two tokens in and they took their positions on either end of the table.

For a moment, when the air started up, it blew upwards into Peter’s hair, and he closed his eyes with relief.  It was impossible not to savor this moment, the first time he’d left his apartment in far too long.

“So when does your heat start?” MJ said abruptly, interrupting his reverie.

Peter bit his lip and hit the puck in MJ’s direction.  He had no idea how she expected to win; his reflexes were ten times better, even with some suppressants still in his system, and he could almost  _ feel _ where the puck was going to go next.  It was incredible to have his spider-sense returning, even if it wasn’t in full force yet.   “Um, probably pretty quickly after the suppressants are out of my system. I’m really overdue.”

“I hope it doesn’t suck too bad,” MJ said earnestly.

“It should be a lot better since Peter and Deadpool are gonna bond,” Ned interjected, his eyes focused on watching the puck zoom back and forth.

Peter hit the disk extra hard; it shot across the table and clanged into MJ’s goal slot with excessive noise.  He looked up at MJ with what was probably a shit-eating grin, but was met with an expression he hadn’t expected to see.

MJ was staring at him, mouth open a little, eyebrows furrowed with hurt.

“Wait.  You’re...you’re seriously going to bond with him?  During...during  _ this _ heat?”

Peter swallowed.  He hadn’t consciously made the decision not to tell MJ when he’d told Ned last week; he had expected to get to it sometime today when the three of them were hanging out.  But the way she was looking at him told him that he’d gone about it very wrong.

“Well...yeah, we’re just going to do it.  It’s going to help me out a lot and we’re both -- ”

“So you like, love him and everything?”

MJ’s hand twitched on the air hockey striker she was holding.  Peter’s eyes fell down to it. “Yeah.” He looked up again, feeling guilt kick him in the gut.  “Maybe we can...I don’t know, talk about it, somewhere?” He glanced over at Ned pleadingly, as thought hoping that his friend would get the hint and leave.  Of course Ned stayed put, completely oblivious.

MJ swallowed, seemed to compose herself suddenly, and shrugged.  “No, no. I mean, why would we need to? It’s your choice, man. I just want you to be happy.”

“Yeah, but...if you want to talk about it, I…”

“If you want to bond with him, it’s your choice,” MJ said firmly.

The air hockey table feebly stopped blowing and, despite the general noise of the arcade, it all seemed very quiet for a moment.

It was broken by a weak grinding noise as the table spluttered out a handful of tickets.  Ned lunged forward to tear them off and count loudly, and mercifully, MJ pulled her gaze away from Peter’s eyes and put her attention on Ned.  

“Well, that’s 100 tickets,” Ned said quickly.  “That spider ring is mine.”

Once they’d bought Ned’s stupid plastic ring, which had been handed to them by an exceedingly bored-looking college kid, they went to go buy pizza from the cafe counter within the arcade.  It only took a few of MJ’s sarcastic jokes and a three-foot long string of cheese going from Peter’s mouth to Ned’s slice of pepperoni before things seemed normal. Peter let himself laugh and have a good time, even if he knew he had to address the elephant in the room with MJ.

They spent another hour or so at the arcade.  Peter won at the strength contest machine every time, only tapping into a fraction of his super-strength to send the little ball zooming all the way to the top of the pole.  He also cleaned up pretty well at Dance Dance Revolution, though MJ gave him a good run for his money. Ned was better than both of them at the racing and first-person shooter games, though.

At the end, they had another hundred or so tickets to burn through, and Peter handed them to MJ.  He could always come back here -- he was the one staying in New York -- so it only made sense to let her pick what she wanted.

Ned stayed with MJ while Peter went to get the car, which he’d had to park a couple streets over.  By the time he pulled around to the front of the building, Ned and MJ were waiting for him, and it had started to drizzle.  It was a bit cold for a New York summer day.

Peter cranked the heat on and kept it on full-blast until the goosebumps on MJ’s legs started to go away.

When they pulled up to Ned’s place, his friend clambered out of the backseat, and Peter lowered his window so they could do their handshake.  As Ned’s back disappeared inside his front door, Peter felt his heart start to pound in his chest.

It was just him and MJ now.

Peter put the car in gear and pulled away from Ned’s place.  It was horribly quiet in the car, except for the blasting heater, for an excruciating thirty seconds.  He grasped at straws. “So, what did you get from the arcade with the tickets?”

There was a rustling sound next to him, and a moment later, MJ lifted her hand into his field of vision.  On her little finger, there sat another stupid plastic spider ring, this one in red.

“One hundred tickets, baby.”

They slowed at a stoplight, and there was a frog in Peter’s throat the size of Manhattan.  It wasn’t until the light turned green again that he had the courage to say anything.

“Listen -- ” he finally started, but MJ held up her hand to stop him.

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Peter.  And you definitely don’t have to apologize. I understood, 100 percent.”

Peter couldn’t take his eyes off the road in the middle of Queens traffic, but he could sense MJ’s heartbeat thumping away in her body, and he could feel the way she had flushed.  He turned down the heat a little more, and again, the absence of the fan blowing seemed to create an awkwardly silent atmosphere.

“You’re my best friend,” she added suddenly.  “I just want what’s best for you.”

“And I want the same for you,” Peter asserted.  “And you have to know, MJ. You have to know...that’s not me, right?”

He could hear the breath catch in her throat.  “How can you be sure?”

“MJ -- ”

“If I’d been an Alpha, or if I’d been a guy, or if anything that been just a little different, then we could have maybe worked.  I care so much about you. And I mean, when we learned about how Betas sometimes marry or mate with Alphas or Omegas and they end up having great, well-adjusted lives, I thought, you know,  _ maybe _ things could work out….  And we’re friends and I know that we’re friends but sometimes the way that I felt you, I don’t know,  _ existing _ next to me, I wanted...I thought...it could be possible, and maybe it is in another universe, but I get that you just can’t, and I get that you love Deadpool, and who am I to stand in the way of that?”  Words were tumbling out of MJ like water, and Peter suddenly wished he was anywhere but in a moving vehicle, so he could turn to her and pull her into a hug and catch those words with his hands, but they were on Queens Boulevard and so, instead, he just had to listen.  “But if none of that was the case, Peter, how could you say that you wouldn’t be the best thing for me? Because how could I feel this way for so long if you were anything but the best thing?”

MJ’s turnoff from Queens Boulevard was still several streets away, but Peter wanted anything but to be on the main road right now.  He turned off the boulevard early, and they were on a side street heading into the residential area of Forest Hills.

As soon as there was an open stretch of curb, Peter pulled over and parked.

He turned to MJ.

She was staring back at him.  Her wild brown hair stubbornly fell in front of her face, though she tried to keep it tied back in a ponytail, and her dark eyes were shining with moisture under the street light.  Peter leaned one elbow on the center console, reached over, and gently tucked the stray lock of hair back behind her ear. His insides clenched with guilt as her eyes fluttered shut at his touch.  How had he never noticed that she’d wanted to be more than friends? How had he let it escape him? Had he been so self-absorbed in his own life that he didn’t see MJ looking at him, looking into him, for so long?

“You are beautiful, MJ.  And I care about you so much.  Anytime you need me, anytime you need  _ anything _ , you just call me.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in New York or halfway across the country.  You mean the world to me and I will be there for you.” Peter found her hand and squeezed it.  “I will always be your friend.”

She looked down at her lap.

He hated to see the way her lip trembled, the way that she squeezed her eyes shut tightly.  It wasn’t like her to show her emotions -- she was generally a constant, hiding all the ups and downs that Peter seemed to experience on a daily basis.  But at the same time, he knew that he was hurting her in a way that nobody had probably ever done before. “That’s all there is to give, isn’t there?” she whispered.

“I wish I could make you happy.  But I can’t.”

They sat silently in the car for what seemed like a very long time.  Peter could hear the summer wind blowing through the foliage above them, and the sun, which had peeked out from the thinning clouds, was slowly lowering in the sky, still making beautiful, long days.  The angled light was hitting MJ’s hair, making it glow a soft, nutty brown. He waited for her tears to dry out, still squeezing her hand. It wasn’t fair, he knew, that things had worked out this way.  Some part of him wished, not for the first time, that he were a Beta. Then everything would be simpler, and maybe he could have made MJ happy.

At the same time, there was now a voice inside him that was happy about being an Omega, that was glad to be one because that meant he could be with Wade.  As much as he loved his friends -- as much as he could never replace Ned or MJ, or everything they’d done for him, and meant to him, and would continue to mean to him -- there had always been a space in his life that needed to be filled in.  And Wade had been the only one to ever satisfy it.

MJ reached up and wiped her face with her sleeve, most of her tears hidden behind her mop of hair hanging down.  After a moment, she squeezed his hand back and cleared her throat thickly. “You can take me home.”

Peter gave MJ’s fingers one final pulse of pressure before he transferred his hand back to the steering wheel.  He pulled back out onto the relatively clear street and they made it the next mile or so without saying much else.  He could feel the awkwardness hanging in the air in the car, as though someone had suddenly sucked all the comfort out of their relationship.

He couldn’t leave it like that.  Not when he knew that the next time he’d see her, he’d probably be bonded to Wade.

“MJ, do you remember when we were on the decathlon trip to Washington, D.C.?” he said suddenly, as he parked the car in her driveway.  She sniffled slightly as she looked at him, eyebrows furrowed like he was crazy.

“Duh.  How could I forget?”

“Do you remember how I was out trying to be extra, be this big-shot hero and take down the Vulture, and all the while, I was being a total douche to the decathlon team?”

“Well, you still saved everyone’s life.”

Peter shrugged.  “Sure, yeah, because I had to.  Because saving people is just common moral decency, if you have the ability to do it.  But you did something that I neglected to do, which was help take the team to victory. You did that, because it was important to everyone.  You were a hero that day, too.”

MJ shook her head.  “Why are you saying all this?”

“Because,” Peter asserted, “I just never want you to go a day without remembering how amazing you are.  I meant what I said when I said that you don’t need anyone to save you. You are brave, and you’re kind, and you’re one of the most unique people I’ve ever met.  And,” he said pointedly, though gently, “you’re going to find someone who makes you very happy someday. And you’re not going to take any shit from anyone.”

She blew out a long, tired breath.  “If you say so, Peter,” she said before getting out of the car.  Still, as he watched her unlock her door, he could see, though just barely, the hint of a smile on her lips.

 

~~~~

 

The next morning, Peter felt almost normal.

It was his second day skipping his heat suppressant, and as he slowly got back to his pre-suppressant energy, he couldn’t help but feel a little more like himself.  Sure, he was a little bit jumpy and on-edge, since coming off the suppressants allowing his enhanced sensitivity to input to come flooding back, and it had been many weeks since his senses had been dialed up quite so high.  But he was also equally jumpy from just the nerves of knowing that, any day now, he could be bonding with Wade.

The bonding hormones had come in the mail, and that very same day was the day that Peter took his last heat suppressant.  There was no point in dragging it out any longer -- not when Wade was back and they had what they needed to finally let Peter feel comfortable and have a heat where he wasn’t overwhelmed with the negative sensations of it.  Wade was less anxious and more purely excited for the moment that they’d bond -- or, at least, he seemed that way. Peter could see how it was a bit more like a life-long event that Wade had been waiting for, whereas Peter was so young that it just seemed like yet another thing he hadn’t done yet due to his age.  However, it struck him once more as the day wore on that he was, indeed, agreeing to make a bond that could last for life. He felt aggressively young to be doing it, when he really thought about it.

At the same time, he was aggressively young to be a superhero, too, but that had definitely never stopped him from doing it.

Aunt May was, thankfully, completely on-board with the bonding.  She had never bonded herself, since both she and Uncle Ben were Betas, but she had been doing research for several days about the physiological effects of bonding.  Peter supposed it appealed to her nursing side to know what was going to happen to her nephew biologically. And the nice thing about it was that she ended up learning things Peter hadn’t even known.

“You’re going to want to eat a small meal before you start your heat, because one of the side effects of the hormone shot is feeling a little bit nauseated or dizzy.  And you’ll probably need to have plenty of water nearby. Some people feel tired when they first bond, while others feel a bit more energized,” May explained as she packed her suitcase.  Peter was standing in the doorway to her room, watching her collect her things for her long weekend away. Once again, she’d been financed by what Peter could only assume was the generosity of Stark Industries to stay in a nice hotel for five days.  Once Wade and Peter had mutually decided that the best and most comfortable place for Peter to bond with Wade would be in his own apartment, relocating May had become a priority.

“So it just depends on the person?” Peter summarized for his aunt.  He leaned against the door frame, trying not to feel jittery and nervous.  Her constant motion wasn’t helping.

“Well, it depends on a lot of things.  Age, general health, whether you’re male or female, those kinds of things.  Could you hand me my makeup bag from the bathroom?” she answered distractedly.

Peter left the doorway to grab Aunt May’s makeup out of the bathroom cabinet.  When he stepped back into her room, she was sitting on her bed, looking startlingly still compared to how she had just been running around.  There was something small in her hands. Peter’s eyes went straight to where she was hiding the thing in her lap. 

“What is that?” he blurted.

May grinned at him.  “All right, you know that Ben and I were Betas, so we never really bonded in the way that you and Wade are going to.  But we still wanted to do something -- besides getting married, of course -- to make our relationship more official, especially since a lot of our friends were bonding.  So when we’d been together for a year, we bought these.” She unfolded her hands and held up a small box with a lid. With a slight tremble to her hands, she took the lid off and tilted the box in Peter’s direct so he could see what was in it.

Inside were two chains, one gold and one silver in color.  The gold one was slightly thicker, while the silver one was more delicate.  Aunt May reached in carefully and pulled out the tangle of chain before freeing them apart from each other.  They hung, glinting, from her hands.

“We were mushy and symbolic, of course.  The yellow gold chain was for Ben, and the white gold one was for me.  It was pretty much the most expensive and important thing I owned at the time.”  Peter could hear his aunt’s voice getting thick as she looked down at the silvery chain.  “I wore it under my clothes for most of my life. You probably didn’t even notice it, but...I stopped wearing it after Ben died.”

Peter swallowed the painful lump that was forming in his throat.  His emotions had been flooding back to him since he’d stopped the suppressants, and they seemed right under the surface now.  The sudden shame that he had never noticed his aunt either wearing the necklace, or taking it off, pushed him to the edge of tears.  “Why?” he managed.

Aunt May smiled sadly at him.  “Well, when one bonding partner dies, the bond gets broken.  And since this was supposed to be our bond, I guess…” She bit her lip, then pressed the chains into her lap as though she could press away the memories.

Peter fell forward and knelt by Aunt May’s side, bowing his head slightly with the hopes that she might not notice the redness of his eyes.  “But you guys had a bond that went beyond biology. You and Uncle Ben loved each other, even though you didn’t have hormones to solidify it. You were together no matter what.”

May breathed a small laugh through her nose.  “Well, it wasn’t always easy.”

“Is it ever?” Peter found himself asking.

“Sometimes,” she answered honestly.  “Sometimes it’s the easiest thing in the world.  And sometimes you have to work really hard. But as long as there’s a balance, and you respect each other.  These chains were a reminder sometimes, when the going got tough.” Aunt May leaned away from Peter, towards her suitcase, and dug her hand between some of the clothes she’d already stacked in.  A second later, she straightened up, another box in her hand. A red box.

Peter stared at it.

“What?  May, you...you didn’t have to…”

She shushed him and shrugged.  “I don’t have to do anything. But I  _ get _ to do a lot of things, and you don’t get a say, because I’m the aunt and you’re the nephew.”

May pressed the box into his hand.

“Now let me finish packing so I can get out of your hair.  I wouldn’t want to still be around when the show gets going.”  She stood up and looked down at Peter, who was clutching the box in his hands.  “Make sure you’re careful, got it?”

“Yeah, May,” Peter answered.  He didn’t feel like he could say much more than that, just now.  The box was warm in his hands.

“Okay, get out of here.  Go rest up.”

  
  
  


~~~~~

 

_____WADE

 

When the bonding hormone had showed up at Peter’s door along with a heat’s worth of birth control shots, Wade had nearly collapsed.

He was keeping it cool for his baby boy, who was still struggling with coming off his heat suppressants, but inside he was freaking out a little.  He, Wade, a.k.a. Deadpool, a.k.a. what you’d probably get if you crossed the Hamburglar with actual hamburger, was gearing up to bond with a man who could only be described as an angel fallen from the motherfucking heavens, all wrapped up in tight spandex and with the moral code of someone who hadn’t yet been ruined by the world.  It was unfair to Peter, really. The kid deserved to bond with, marry, and have beautiful babies with a supermodel. Instead, he was getting the lovechild of an avocado and a tomato.

[ _ Stop referencing food, dammit, you’re going to make me hungry. _ ]

Wade dug his hands into his pockets as he waited for the subway, having just grabbed some supplies for Peter’s heat from one of his safehouses.  His hood was pulled up over his bald scalp to keep the prying eyes away, but the reality was that if he ever felt like he didn’t give a flying fuck what other people thought, this was probably that day.

{ _ Seriously, we’re about to go make love to Spider-Man, and earn the bond to do it every day for the rest of our fucking lives. _ }

“The rest of this fanfiction, you mean,” Wade muttered as the train shot into the station and slowed to a screeching halt.  He let everyone off and most of the people on before he finally boarded, trying not to hit anybody with his backpack. There was more he could say to the boxes, but he didn’t want to come across as even more disconcerting than he already looked.

[ _ So, don’t mind me asking, but what’s going to happen when Peter gets old and dies? _ ]

Yellow box burst a gasket.  { _ Are you...SHITTING...me?  We are about to plant our dick into the most beautiful ass on the planet and you have the AUDACITY to try to RUIN it?!  AGAIN????? _ }

[ _ Oh, come on, I’m just saying.  You’re going to live forever, and Peter is going to get old and die.  That’s what happens to people. Even people with spider powers. _ ]

Wade squinted at his shoes as the boxes bickered back and forth about whether Peter’s advanced healing would prevent him from aging at a normal rate.  In reality, he’d already spent waking and dreaming hours thinking about their odd-couple problems. He doubted that most bonding partners had to worry about the fact that one of the pair could potentially live forever.  Most Alphas and Omegas had fights about whether they’d buy a house together or what they’d name their offspring.

Then again, he could only imagine that he’d have the privilege of having those fights with Peter, too.  Just because Wade might live forever didn’t mean that he wouldn’t get a lifetime of proper moments with his baby boy.  They would still think about real estate, they’d still talk about finances, they’d still bicker about baby names (and Wade felt warm just thinking about it).  The only difference was that Wade would have to deal with Peter leaving him behind somewhere down the line.

In reality, he was thankful that he was the one who might be doomed to live forever, instead of the other way around.  He’d never wish it on anybody.

The boxes were still arguing when the doors of the subway train slid open at his stop.  Wade jostled past a few people, getting ugly looks that he barely noticed. When he was finally out of earshot of most of the public, he tuned back into what the boxes were saying.  He caught the tail-end of Yellow’s argument.

{ _ \-- and if anybody could develop some kind of miracle cure to help us die, it would be Peter.  Well, maybe Stark, but we’re not crawling to him for that shit. _ }

“Why are we dying, fellas?” Wade cut in.

[ _ Well, we’re not yet.  Yellow is discussing how we might prevent Peter from outliving us.  I’m not convinced that’s a good idea, first of all, but --  _ ]

“Look, there’s no way of figuring out how to die at this point, right?”

{ _ Not if you take out that stupid anti-mutant collar plot-hole from your second movie. _ }

“Oh hell, I’m not counting that.  Okay, so next question: I deserve to be happy, right?”

[ _ Debatable. _ ]

Wade wrinkled his nose as he ventured out onto the sidewalk, dropping his voice low so he was only audible to his own subconscious.  “Well, if there’s no way to figure out how to die yet, but I deserve to be happy, then what...am I going to wait forever until they find a way?  Or am I going to grab this damn existence by the horns and fuck it while it’s hot?”

[ _ I am pretty sure you conflated SEVERAL analogies there. _ ]

{ _ Fuck it by the horns! _ }

“Exactly,” Wade said firmly.

He was only two blocks away from Peter’s apartment, and he wasn’t slowing down now.

 

~~~~

 

Peter seemed even more nervous than Wade did.

The kid was pacing around his apartment, randomly shouting out things that his aunt might have forgotten to pack for her getaway weekend.

“Toothbrush and toothpaste?” he spouted off, barely acknowledging Wade coming in the door.

“Yep.”  Aunt May’s voice was muffled, coming from her room while Peter wore footprints into the living room carpet.

“Swimsuit?”

“Yep!”

“Cash?”

“More than you have to your name, buster.”  Wade looked down at Peter, who was still not looking his direction.

“Mr. Stark fucking financed this trip, didn’t he?”

“Well, he wasn’t the only one,” Wade growled.  He’d definitely thrown in a solid $500. Which, regardless of how much Iron Ass contributed, was still more than Wade had ever spent on anyone’s aunt, including his own.

Peter whipped around to look at Wade, finally.  His eyes were soft. “Oh, man, you’re such a sweetheart.”

[ _ Did he just call us a sweetheart? _ ]

{ _ He can call me anything.  Including daddy. _ }

Wade chuckled.  “Are you having mood swings?”

It was clearly the wrong thing to say.  Like the flip of a switch, his baby boy’s eyes went dark and his brow furrowed viciously.  “How can you  _ say _ that?!  God, you’re a dick.”  Peter ran his hand through his thick hair agitatedly and continued his pacing.  Wade made a mental note to steer clear of saying literally anything. Coming up off the heat suppressants was probably throwing Peter’s emotions far,  _ far _ out of whack.

Aunt May appeared in her bedroom door, a small carry-on size suitcase in tow.  “Peter, everything is going to be just fine,” she said soothingly. Then she looked up at Wade.  He might have been imagining it, but she looked just a little bit proud. “Hello, Wade. It’s lovely to see you.”

“Thank you, May.  I hope you enjoy your weekend.”

“I will.  Take care of Peter, okay?”

“For sure,” Wade said evenly.  Peter had come right to his elbow and it felt like the kid was vibrating with emotion next to him.  Sure enough, a second later, Peter launched himself at his aunt and threw his arms around her neck.

“Peter, you’re going to be fine.  I’m glad that you’re doing this, really.  Dr. Thompson sounded really adamant that this is the best way to help you through your heats.”  She squeezed Peter, who seemed to almost sag in her arms. “Don’t forget about the box,” May added cryptically into Peter’s ear.  Wade felt a twitch of interest, but asking about “the box” right now would probably make Peter burst into tears or something.

“I’ll miss you.  Thank you,” Peter answered into the shoulder of his aunt’s sweater.

Then, Peter slowly peeled himself away, and Aunt May was gone out the door.  Peter closed it after her and flicked the deadlock.

For a long moment, it was quiet.  Wade shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not sure what to say to his very volatile baby boy.

Finally, Peter turned around, and he looked exceedingly soft once more.  “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Are you...I mean...are you ready?”  God, the way that Peter suddenly looked so shy made Wade want to combust.  They’d been spending almost every minute together since Wade got back from his arrest, and growing so close that it seemed far less natural to be away from each other than it did to be together.  Yet Peter was suddenly acting as though it was their first heat together again. With less foot-to-chest kicking happening.

“Baby boy, I was fucking born ready.  I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to shack up with you for the rest of it.”  He clapped Peter on the back, knocking a little color into the kid’s face, along with the hint of a grin.  “Let’s get some food in you. I learned a lot about using bonding hormone recently. Courtesy of Nurse May, who sent me a fucking dissertation via text message about how to best take care of you over the next four days.”

Peter’s shy exterior melted a little at the joke.  “Are you cooking?”

“You know it, baby boy.  You go sit down on the couch and find a good movie to watch.”

While Peter made himself comfortable in the living room, Wade unzipped his backpack and started unpacking a few MRE’s that he’d collected over the last few months.  Some of the little brown packets in the bottom of his bag were from the army surplus store in Manhattan, while others were from Amazon and there was at least one in there that he’d stolen out of Wolverine’s room the last time he’d visited the dweebs upstate.  Normally he would have preferred to cook something special for his baby boy, but MRE’s were easy to make and had a lot of calories -- two things that were essential for getting through a heat.

At the same time, Wade had no idea what this heat would be like.  They were planning on bonding right away, for the first wave, so that Peter had to go through as little discomfort as possible.  Would the bonding shorten his heat? Would it be less intense than normal? Or would it still be just as long and just as physically exhausting, but with more fun and less angst?

Wade could hear the sounds of  _ Wreck-It Ralph _ playing from the living room television.

{ _ Goddamnit, he loves Disney movies too, doesn’t he?  How the fuck did we get so lucky? _ }

“Pretty sure he’s contractually obligated to love Disney,” Wade said thoughtfully as he ripped open one of the brown packets and started making dinner.

Twenty minutes later, Wade plopped down on the couch next to Peter, who was leaning back against the cushions, hands fidgeting in his lap next to his concave stomach. Wade carefully set the plates of food down on the coffee table.  “You doing all right, baby boy?”

Peter stopped fidgeting and folded his arms instead.  “Yeah, I’m okay. Just nervous, I guess.”

“Don’t worry.  Just like your aunt said, you’re going to be fine.  I wouldn’t inject you with anything that Dr. Thompson hadn’t given the green light.”

Peter bit his lip, staring at the television, though it didn’t look like he was seeing the movie.  “I’m not nervous about the bonding hormone. You might have forgotten, but I was already dosed with bonding hormone before.  And before you say anything,” Peter added hastily, seeing Wade about to object, “I know it’s not the same thing at all. I know it’s going to be a different concentration of hormone and it’s going to be without DNA already in it and it’s going to be with you, obviously.  But if I survived that horrible ordeal, there’s no way I won’t get through whatever is in that box. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not nervous about the hormone -- I’m nervous about. You know. Bonding.”

[ _ I fucking knew it.  Abort mission. _ ]

Wade felt like his heart had just plummeted into his stomach.  “I understand. If you’re having second thoughts.”

Peter squinted at him, confused, his messed-up eyebrow wrinkled.  “What? No. Look -- I want to be with you. I know that. I mean, that’s really all I know, to be honest.  That’s not what the issue is. The thing that’s making me nervous is just that...I guess...I don’t know how it’s going to change our relationship, or whatever.  Like...are we going to feel differently towards each other? Act differently? Be all stupid and bubbly and like we’re brand-new lovers or something?”

“Petey, we basically are brand-new lovers.  I only started fucking you in March.”

“You know what I mean.”  Peter reached up and touched his throat, something that Wade had seen him do a lot more since the fight with Johanneson.  It had become his nervous tick, to hold the spot where the Hydra agent had sunk his teeth into Peter’s pale skin. Wade felt murderous at the thought.  “When I thought you bonded with me, I thought that maybe my feelings were all imaginary. Or caused by hormones. I’m just scared that the feelings I have, which I know now are real, are going to be overrun by something...I don’t know.  Less real. Artificial.”

Peter’s fingers clutched at his throat as though the action would prevent him from crying, but there were definitely tears shining in Peter’s eyes.  Wade reached forward and gently took his baby boy’s hand away from his neck so he could fold their fingers together instead.

“Peter, I love you.  And you love me. And Alphas and Omegas have been loving each other and bonding with each other since the dawn of time.  If your feelings toward me change at all after we bond, it’s not like they’re coming from nowhere. Those feelings are still yours, somewhere, deep down.  I believe that.”

Wade squeezed Peter’s fingers and dipped forward to press a kiss against Peter’s hair.  His baby boy smelled like himself again, muddy and dangerous and beautiful and completely Peter.  Just as the spicy-clean scent that would be taking over shortly was also beautiful and completely Peter.  Both one-hundred percent him, both just a part of the baby boy he loved so hard.

Peter relaxed into Wade’s shoulder.  “Goddamnit, that’s so fucking sweet. You’re the nicest person on the planet.”

Wade grinned into Peter’s scalp.  “And you’re getting knocked around by your hormones, Petey.  I am fully prepared for you to turn a 180 and tell me in the next five minutes that you hate my guts.”

The feeling of Peter chuckling against him made Wade warm and stupidly content.  “I know, I’m hard to keep up with right now. I’m sorry. Everything has just come rushing back -- my emotions, my spidey-senses, my strength….  I nearly fucking broke the faucet today when I went to brush my teeth.”

“Oh baby boy, I hope you don’t hold that raw power back when I get you in bed later,” Wade teased.

The only response was Peter’s intake of breath and a small shiver.  Fuck, he hoped that one of Peter’s moods was “horny” because despite their slow-and-steady sex session while Peter’s energy had been in the toilet, it seemed like it had been far too long since he’d been with his baby boy properly.

Still -- they couldn’t jump the gun.  Not when they had what could be four days of a heat to work through coming up.  Wade reluctantly took Peter by the shoulders and held him at arm’s length. The kid looked up at him with those brown eyes that made Wade want to melt.  “Let’s get some food in you. I made instant spaghetti bolognese.”

Although it was far from the best thing Wade had ever made, Peter ate like he hadn’t eaten in a long time -- like his spidey metabolism was kicking back in with a vengeance.  He took no offense that they didn’t talk while they wolfed down their food, nor that they didn’t talk when Peter pushed his empty plate onto the coffee table. In fact, he felt a distinct sense of affection when the kid merely stretched out, pulled a throw pillow into Wade’s lap, and rested his head on it, his eyes still trained on the movie.

This was Peter, and Peter was his baby boy, and he was so ready to be Peter’s Alpha.  He was ready to be Peter’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment because you all know I fucking love comments. They fuel the passion.


	30. Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this took a bit longer to finish than I anticipated (what's new?) but like...how do you end your baby, you know? I've been working on this story for over a year and it's finally done.
> 
> All I can say is that I hope you all enjoy the last chapter. Please let me know what you think in the comments! I love you all very much for sticking with this story for so long. You are the most supportive readers a writer could ever hope to have. Each of you has inspired me to keep going, even when it seems like there's no way I could write another word/sentence/paragraph/page. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I dedicate all of this to each and every one of you.   
> <3 Leafy

___WADE

 

The living room was mostly dark when he blinked awake.  Wade somewhat recalled turning off the television last night, and he’d thought about getting both of them to bed, but Peter had fallen asleep on his lap and there was no way that he wanted to disturb the kid.  Plus, the second Wade’s head had flopped back onto the couch cushions, he’d been a goner, too. 

Now, Wade could hear the birds losing their minds outside, singing in a way that could only mean the dark sky outside was about to be lightening for morning.

For a moment, he assumed that it was the birds that had woken him up.  His second thought was that it might have been his neck, which certainly had a strained muscle in it from the way his head had been crooked back while he’d been sleeping.  But after a moment in which he massaged his neck muscles until his body healed them, he realized that he might have woken up for a third reason entirely.

Peter was still soundly asleep, one hand clutching the pillow that was between his head and Wade’s lap.  His legs were covered by a throw blanket, but his torso was uncovered, and his T-shirt had ridden up a little, exposing part of the flat plane of his stomach and just a hint of his hip bone.

And the muddy, dangerous scent of Peter was definitely tinged with a thread of heady spiciness.

The kid’s heat was coming in.

Wade felt a thrill of nerves and excitement flutter into his stomach.  This was it -- they were coming closer and closer to the moment where he’d inject Peter with the bonding hormone, where the bite that he’d sink into Peter would be more than just an act of passion.  

[ _ Are you sure about this? _ ] White asked sleepily.  Even upon waking, the boxes could never miss their moment to give their input.

{ _ The Oscar for Most Annoying Nag in the Universe goes to...Whitey. _ }

Wade carefully ran his scarred fingers over Peter’s thick hair, which was falling over at weird angles because of how he’d slept, and traced the spot at the base of the kid’s hairline where his teeth were going to sink in.

“I’m so sure,” Wade murmured.

He reached down into his pocket, trying not to nudge Peter’s head at all, and pulled out his phone.  It was probably a sign that he loved this boy that he had Aunt May programmed into his phone, too. It was the first time he’d ever given a damn about any of the family members of any of his lovers.  He’d honestly never even known if Vanessa’s parents were alive or whether they lived nearby, and he’d never had the interest to know.

But, damn, he’d learn everything about Peter if he could.  He’d never stop learning.

Wade typed out a short message to May that Peter was starting his heat.  Of course, that didn’t necessarily indicate when May could come back, since even Dr. Thompson hadn’t been sure about what effect bonding might have on Peter’s Omega body.  She said that sometimes it shortened heats, and sometimes they were the same length but just more bearable. Wade secretly hoped it was the latter so that he could ravage his baby boy for days to come.

Once he’d sent the text, he waited.

Peter only half-smelled like a heat, and there was no sense in waking him up before he needed to.  The kid needed all the sleep he could get now, because sleep would probably be hard to come by later.  So, Wade sat patiently. It was fucking hard not to let his nerves get the best of him. He pressed his head back into the couch cushions, allowing the headiness of Peter’s scent to slowly increase as the minutes ticked by.  What if something went wrong? What if Peter got cold feet? What if Peter  _ didn’t _ get cold feet and then decided down the line that it had all been a mistake?

[ _ Look.  I know I’m the last one that should support you here, but...this is probably a good idea.  It’s not like we haven’t thought about it extensively, anyhow. _ ]

Wade blinked at the ceiling.  { _ Did you just say something that we want to hear? _ }

White box sounded indignant.  [ _ No.  I said something that is true.  This is probably a good idea, okay?  We’ve put a lot of thought into it, and we’ve gotten outside opinions, and as much as it pains me to say, you’re not wrong that you deserve to be happy, so….  Yeah. Stop being so damn worried. Leave the worry-wart status to me. _ ]

Yellow box seemed stunned into silence, and Wade couldn’t blame him.  It had been a long time since White box had approved of anything he’d done.  

[ _ Now wake the kid up, because he’s starting to smell like a heat, for real. _ ]

Wade inhaled deeply through his nose.

Sure enough, the scent of heat was nearly strong enough to make him feel drunk.  His groin was taking interest, too. Peter was still breathing deeply on his lap, but if he didn’t wake up the kid now, Peter would definitely be waking up shortly due to discomfort.

Wade brushed Peter’s hair off his face, then gently rubbed his shoulder.  “Hey, Petey, time to wake up.”

Every bit a teenager, Peter barely stirred, though his deep breathing caught in his throat.  “Five more minutes?”

As much as he wanted to let Peter sleep, as much as he didn’t mind watching Peter’s soft lips parted around his slow breaths, the degree to which Peter smelled undeniably Omega was enough to make him think twice about being soft.  He carded his fingers through the teenager’s hair. “I’d love to let you have all the time in the world, baby boy. But I think you’re going to want to get up now -- ”

“I know,” Peter cut in, voice groggy and raspy with exhaustion.  A second later, he moved one hand to his flat stomach and pressed down against the smooth muscle.  “I can feel it.”

Shit.  Maybe Wade had let him sleep too long already.  “Does it hurt?”

Peter let out a slow breath.  “Not yet. Just a little cramping.”  Wade watched as his baby boy buried his face in the pillow on Wade’s lap.  When he spoke again, his voice was muffled by the soft fabric. “But you smell really damn good.”

{ _ We are going to cream our pants before we even get started, _ } Yellow box groaned.  Wade was certainly hard under the pillow.  The combination of Peter’s delicious pheromones and the way that the kid’s morning voice sounded almost fucked-out was sending little electric shocks to his dick.  But there were other things to get done before they could simply jump into the bonding. Wade steeled himself and shoveled his hands under the pillow to unceremoniously lift Peter off his lap.

“Let’s get you fed again, baby boy.  You need a small meal before the shot, remember?  We don’t want you getting nauseous on an empty stomach.”

With a huff of discontentment, Peter straightened up.  His cheek was pink from where it had been plastered against the pillow, and his hair was stuck up at an odd angle, but there was no time to think about just how much Wade wanted to fuck the kid right into the couch.  He had to take  _ care _ of Peter first; that was what his top priority as an Alpha should be.  And he wanted to be the best Alpha possible, especially for his first time as Peter’s bonded one.

It was easier to focus in the kitchen, a solid fifteen feet away from Peter’s sharpening scent.  Rather than throw together another MRE, which might have been a little too much for Peter’s stomach, depending on how he took the bonding injection, Wade simply found a loaf of bread and some peanut butter and jelly, and made two sandwiches.  Then he took a deep breath and made his way back over to the couch.

Peter was sprawled back against the arm of it, and the pillow he’d been sleeping on was now over his lower abdomen and groin, held there like a protective shield.  His eyes were pressed shut.

“Petey?” Wade said uncertainly.

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose, not opening his eyes.  “‘M fine,” he managed. “It’s just that it’s been so long since I was in heat properly, I’m cramping kind of hard and...yeah, I think this heat is going to be really strong.”

Wade lowered himself to the couch, not taking his gaze away from his baby boy.  “Hopefully the bonding helps. But you gotta eat. Your aunt is going to stop loving me if you barf all over the place.”

Still not opening his eyes, Peter reached out and took the sandwich from where he sensed Wade’s outstretched hand.  “She’s going to love you no matter what.”

“Well, your aunt is very loving.”

Finally, Peter’s eyes flickered open.  “You’re also very lovable.”

{ _ So, why aren’t we marrying Peter right now too?  Like, why stop at bonding? I’ll put a ring on this man’s finger any time. _ }

[ _ We have to get him safely through this heat first.  Dr. Thompson was pretty clear that if Peter isn’t taken care of, his health could be in danger. _ ]

{ _ Fine.  I’ll put a ring on this man’s cock any time. _ }

Wade nearly choked on his sandwich, drawing a curious glance from Peter until Wade gestured over his shoulder as if to say,  _ It’s the motherfucking boxes again. _  The way that Peter’s mouth curled up in a knowing grin made Wade want to kiss the grin off his face and keep kissing and keep kissing forever and ever.

And maybe it was just the fact that his dick was already stiff as hell, and he was already feeling his rut in the back of his mind, but his rational brain could not come up with a reason to ignore that particular impulse.

In one move, Wade’s half-eaten sandwich was on the table, Peter’s was on the floor, and Wade was practically eating bread crumbs out of his baby boy’s soft, surprised mouth.

The way that Peter moaned into it, and jerked his hips against Wade’s until they were pinning the pillow between them, had Wade’s rut already prickling in his head, demanding active shutdown to keep it from bursting into his stomach.  He pulled away to master himself, leaving Peter heavy-lidded against the sofa arm.

“Fuckity fuck, you’re beautiful,” Wade breathed.  How was he already this desperate?

Peter bit down on his lip and clutched the pillow more tightly against his groin.  “Goddamn, you can’t tease me like that.”

“I’m not teasing, baby boy.  Your almost-heat smell is driving me crazy.”

“Can’t we just take the bonding shot now?  So that you can knot me the second I’m there?  The second I’m in heat?” Peter groaned.

Not even the boxes had a response.  It seemed like they, along with Wade’s brain, temporarily went offline with the sheer sexiness of Peter’s words.  He sat there, rooted to the couch, until Peter nudged his leg with one socked foot. “Wade.”

“Christ, Petey, you do things to me.”  Wade cleared his throat and tried to block out the way Peter’s spicy, clean scent was truly overpowering the dangerous smell, the way that the Omega pheromones were making him feel drunk on desire.  “Dr. Thompson said you have to be in full heat when I give you the shot. It’ll be the most potent then. And you don’t smell like you’re in full heat yet.”

Peter shook his head distractedly.  “No. No emptiness yet. No slick yet.  Just a lot of really overwhelming smells and every fiber of my body wants you to fuck me right now.”

Motherfucking Christ.  Wade mentally slammed down the rut that was pressing in on his mind, stood up, and tore the pillow away from Peter’s crotch.  He bent down and took Peter up into his arms, getting a full whiff of the pheromones coming from the tent in Peter’s sweatpants, and from Peter’s neck as the kid let his head tip back, overwhelmed.  Without any words, Wade carried Peter to the bathroom.

“Get undressed and get in the shower.  I’m going to go get the hormones,” he instructed as he tipped Peter back down onto his feet.  Peter slid out of his arms languidly and immediately found the hem of his shirt to pull it up over his head.  Wade stared at the pale flesh stretching up over the kid’s abs as he struggled for a moment; he didn’t bother hiding the fact that he’d been staring when Peter finally freed himself and discarded the shirt to the floor.  

“Get the hormones,” Peter reminded him breathily, and leaned on the counter for a second to collect himself.  There was a damp spot on the front of his sweatpants that was unmistakably precum. Despite the sudden urge to rip Peter’s pants right off, Wade broke himself out of his stupor and left the bathroom, and the overwhelming smell of pheromones, to get the hormones -- and the birth control -- that were in Peter’s bedroom.

The case that they’d both come in was sitting innocuously on Peter’s desk.  The moment that the package had arrived at Peter’s apartment had seemed like simultaneously the most exciting and the most terrifying catalyst that had ever come into Wade’s life.  With the birth control shot and the hormones, there was nothing stopping Peter and Wade from becoming life partners.

Even the click of unlatching the clasp sent shivers down his spine a little bit.

Inside the case were several syringes and a very small sharps container, the same as how Dr. Thompson had prepared the birth control injections before.  But this time, there was a separate case to the side, clearly labeled BONDING HORMONE. Wade rested a scarred hand on the case. So much potential in it, just sitting there.

Instead of opening it, though, he picked up one of the many syringes and prepared the birth control instead.  He’d have to stay on top of administering it to himself often to keep Peter safe -- he’d already taken one of the needles earlier and given himself a shot back at his safehouse when he was preparing for Peter’s heat, so it would have time to take effect.  The thought of knocking Peter up certainly sent a strange feeling into his gut, but now was not the time.

With a steady hand, Wade carefully rolled up one sleeve and stuck himself with the needle, pressed down on the plunger, then pulled it straight out and put the syringe directly in the sharps container.

His hand closed on the small case of bonding hormone just as a loud groan came from the bathroom.

Wade took the case with him as he went straight back to check on Peter.  The smell of pheromones was permeating most of the apartment. A cocktail of near-heat Omega and excited Alpha.  His rut was getting more insistent in his head, but he shut it down with some difficulty as he opened the bathroom door.

“Fuck, Petey.”

Wade had seen Peter in all kinds of sexy, compromising positions now.  But he was still not prepared to see his baby boy, completely naked, looking fucking close to succumbing to his heat.  Peter’s forehead was resting on his forearms on top of the bathroom counter, and he was bent at the hips, his cock, looking dark and swollen, jutting out against his abs.

The scent in the air reminded Wade of when he and Peter had been waiting for the subway on their date, when Peter had promptly rutted against Wade three times on the short trip to the Ritz-Carlton.  He was reaching the tipping point.

Wade placed the case on the counter and took a step toward his Omega.  He could see Peter’s skin shining with a thin layer of sweat, his muscles straining next to the little bumps of his spine.  “Hey, easy. Come on, let’s get you into the shower.” He placed his hands on Peter’s shoulder, and the shiver that rippled through his baby boy made his rut all the more present in his mind.

Peter lifted his head an inch off his forearm, and Wade could hear him panting.  “No, I’m...I just want to go to my bed.”

“Okay, well, I’ve got the shot here at least -- ”

“ -- I want to be comfortable when we do it,” Peter said quickly.  “I want us to be in my bed. I want you to be holding me.”

Wade swallowed.  “Anything you want, Petey.”  This was it. This was fucking it.

He gently pulled Peter up from the bathroom counter and took the kid into his arms again.  The hero gripped Wade’s shoulder with one hand and reached down to grab the case of hormones with the other.

“I’m ready.”

  
  


___PETER

 

Even though he probably didn’t need Wade to carry him around everywhere, the way that Wade’s scarred fingers traced along Peter’s spine as he carried Peter to the bedroom was almost like foreplay.  The gentle vibrations of Wade’s footsteps made Peter’s senses pulse and made his neck weak. He let his head drape back again, exposing his neck submissively -- the classic Omega pose -- but there was absolutely no part of him that cared that he was playing into his role.  Not today.

Peter felt dizzy with the amount of pheromones in the apartment, felt dizzy with the hormones rushing in his body.  His heat was so close. He could feel Wade’s hands slide in the sheen of sweat on his body as he deposited Peter onto the sheets.

It seemed like there was no other place that they could have bonded.  Sure, Wade had safehouses, and there was always a fancy hotel like the Ritz-Carlton.  Surely the amount of money they would have spent on the room there was equal to the amount of money that Mr. Stark had donated to the Save Aunt May From Listening To Peter Get Railed Vacation Fund.  Still, this bed, his bottom bunk bed, was where Peter had first felt a heat overtake his body. It was where Wade had first taken care of him. Where they had first been together.

It seemed absurd to be sentimental over something that had only started a handful of months prior, but yet, here he was, situating himself against his few pillows, thankful for the fact that at least the sounds from the street were the ones that he heard all the time.  When the rest of his senses were exploding with input, at least there was a scrap of familiarity that wouldn’t overwhelm him.

Of course, Peter wished, in the moment, that he could explain it all to Wade -- how much it meant to him that Wade had agreed to bond him in a place where he could probably bang his head against the underside of the top bunk.

Unfortunately, that would have required Peter to be in a coherent state, and he was quickly leaving that station with a one-way ticket.

“Take off your clothes, okay?” he managed.  His skin was getting sensitive, and the last thing he wanted was to shy away from touching every part of the Alpha that was soon to be his.  In the right side of his field of vision, he could see Wade stripping down. More Alpha pheromones flooded the air, sending a fresh wave of desire into Peter’s groin.

Then, Wade was right there, climbing into the bed beside him, sliding his arm behind Peter’s head.

“You almost there, baby boy?  Because you smell like you are.”

Peter pressed his eyes shut.  “Yeah. Yeah I am.” He could smell Wade’s rut too, a sort of mildly desperate tinge to Wade’s pheromones, just playing in the layers of his scent.  He was holding it back. It seemed horribly understated compared to the pulsing horniness in Peter’s own body. Peter turned his face into Wade’s neck and breathed in the heady mixture of everything that made up Wade, the man that was going to be his very own Alpha.

Then, he felt it.

The little threshold that his hormones had been racing him toward, that his body had been pushing against for at least the last fifteen minutes, the little barrier that separated him from the long gestation of his heat to the moment that it finally overcame him entirely...suddenly seemed gone.

Emptiness bloomed into his abdomen and he heard himself groan into Wade’s neck.

“Oh fuck, Petey.  That’s it. Look at you.”

He didn’t need to look -- he could feel it.  He could feel his already-painful erection swell larger until it seemed heavy against his stomach.  Simultaneously, the lonely emptiness expanded in his body, and the first tingle of his self-lubrication made his muscles tighten.  

He could also feel Wade reach over his body and take something off the bedside stand.  The sound of a case opening up was like a firecracker in his ears and his nerves.

Before he could even think, he blurted out a request into Wade’s textured skin.  “I want to do yours.”

The sound of Wade rustling in the case stopped.  “What was that, baby boy?”

Peter wasn’t quite sure why he felt the need to be the one to slip the needle into Wade’s arm.  He didn’t particularly like the sight of needles anyway, though he knew he could stomach seeing the metallic point disappear under Wade’s skin.  Maybe he felt like he needed to be the one to penetrate his partner, in a way.

He wanted to initiate the bonding with his Alpha, as much as his Alpha was going to be initiating the bonding with him, perhaps.

Peter pulled his head away from the crook of Wade’s shoulder and pushed his sweaty hair back.  “I said, I want to do yours. I want to give you your shot.”

The box was already open in Wade’s hands, with two glinting syringes inside.  Part of Peter expected Wade to disagree, to say that Peter had no experience administering shots, and therefore it would be safer for Wade to do it.

Instead, Wade carefully wedged his finger between one of the syringes and the foam pocketing it, and dislodged it from the box.  The needle tip was protected to prevent accidental stabbing.

Wade held it out to him.  “Okay, Petey. Do you want to go first?”

“You mean have me give you the shot first?”

“Yeah.”  Wade shrugged.  “You know, so I can tell you if it hurts or whatever.”

“No.”  He wasn’t sure exactly why having one person go first was unappealing, but Peter could only see the injections going one way.  With a surprisingly steady hand, Peter took the syringe from Wade’s palm. “We should do them at the same time.”

He pushed himself up until he was sitting cross-legged, desperately trying to ignore the urgent need in his pelvis, the way that his cock was dark with blood.  This wasn’t something that he wanted to rush or do halfway.

They were only going to bond once, and this was it.

Peter faced Wade.

“Okay.  Are you ready, baby boy?” the mercenary asked.  He positioned himself across from Peter on the bed, so they were touching knees.  The canopy of the upper bunk seemed to shelter them, shadowing Wade’s furrowed forehead.  The man’s eyes were dark with desire, but Peter could see the nervousness there, too. Wade was echoing Peter’s own racing heartbeat.

The emptiness inside Peter demanded to be felt, but it seemed distant, in the moment.

“I was born ready,” Peter said.  An echo of Wade.

They both removed the protector from the end of their respective needles.  The air was thick with pheromones, with the scent of the slick that was dampening the sheets under Peter, with the static of anticipation.  Wade reached forward and took Peter’s left upper arm into his hand, positioning the needle over the skin covering the muscle, and Peter did the same.  They were holding each other, equal.

“Count of three,” Wade breathed.

Peter tried not to clench Wade’s arm too hard.  “Three.”

“Two.”

“One,” they said simultaneously.

There was a stinging prick in Peter’s muscle just as he pressed the needle into Wade’s flesh.  He’d never given a shot before, but he found his thumb pushing down on the plunger slowly and surely, mesmerized by the fluid disappearing into his lover’s body.  In his own left arm, a warm soreness was spreading down his arm and into his shoulder.

Then he found himself pulling the needle out of Wade’s arm, and he realized that the needle was already gone from his own, too.  Wade took the syringe out of Peter’s hand and placed them in the sharps box on the bedside stand. When he straightened up, his expression softened.

“Are you okay?  Did it hurt too much?”

Perhaps nothing had ever hurt less in his life.  Peter shook his head slightly, watching the relief spread across Wade’s face.

Now that the shot was done, Peter could feel the demanding sensations of his heat coming back to the foreground.  He hadn’t been wrong when he’d figured that this heat would be particularly rough. “Do you feel anything, yet? Any different?”  The words tumbled out of him. He’d been hoping that the relief would be instantaneous, that the bonding hormone would take the edge off right away.

“Not yet, Petey.  I think we have to give it a minute.”  Wade held out his muscled, bare, intricately scarred arms.  “Do you want me to hold you?”

“Please.”

Peter disentangled his legs from themselves, slid forward, and clambered into Wade’s lap.  He locked his ankles around themselves behind Wade’s back and dug his fingers into the skin stretched over Wade’s shoulder blades.  He was flush against Wade’s front, their dicks hard and warm against each other, making Peter shiver with need and the emptiness in his abdomen flare like a dying star.

He realized instantly that this was exactly where he needed to be.  Wade gripped him in return as Peter clung on for dear life, willing the agony to go away.  The sliver of control that he had, preventing him from thrusting his hips into Wade like an animal, was coming only from the fervent hope that this moment would be the last moment in which he felt the profound loneliness of an all-consuming heat.

One of Wade’s hands reached up and slid into Peter’s damp hair.  “I love you, Petey. It’s all going to be okay. I’m here.” Peter held his breath as Wade’s fingers drew designs onto Peter’s scalp before making their way over the place where Wade always dug his teeth into the back of Peter’s neck.  “I’m always going to be here.”

“I know,” Peter breathed, into Wade’s shoulder.  “I know.”

The soreness in Peter’s arm had dissolved gradually, but the warmth hadn’t.  In fact, the warmth had mingled in with the rest of the fire in Peter’s body, seemingly disappearing amid the chaos swirling inside him.  “I know.”

But there was some distinction between the general heat radiating from him and the warmth of the bonding hormone.  While the former made him seem swollen, sensitive, and urgent, the latter seemed to be just present, full, round, complex in his limbs.  He could feel it almost soothe his frantic heart as he pressed the bridge of his nose against Wade’s neck. “I know,” he repeated, panting, gripping Wade tightly as he felt the warmth become more and more undeniable.

Wade was solid around him, breathing hotly into Peter’s own shoulder.  “I feel it, Peter,” he panted. The use of his full name buzzed in Peter’s ears.  “Fuck, I love you so much.”

Peter opened his mouth to say it back.

Then, like the words itself had prompted it, the warmth in his body seemed to settle into every fiber of his being, taking up permanent residence.  And in his belly, where he was so empty, where the loneliness seemed to eat away at him, the warmth expanded determinedly, filling him, denying the emptiness, until he was shaking with the absence of it.  He couldn’t help himself; one hand pulled away from Wade’s back and dug between their bodies, pressing against his abdomen. The emptiness was still there, the warmth unable to entirely chase it away. But it was as though all of its power over him had been stripped.  Nearly smothering it was the simple warmth of the hormones. And the words that Wade had said that seemingly had brought the relief to him.

Peter palmed his belly.  “I love you too, Wade. I love you.”  Wade’s abs were pressed against the back of his hand, tightening with each breath the man took in his arms.  “God, I love you.”

There was no doubt that Peter’s desire had been building since long before his heat started, since Wade had nudged him awake and he’d smelled the Alpha pheromones as clear as day.  Now, with the emptiness all but gone, the painful edge had disappeared, leaving only the desire left. He needed to hold Wade, to feel his skin on every inch of his own. 

Every inch.

Peter pulled his hand out from between them, relishing in the feeling of their rigid muscles pressing against each other and his sensitive cock being trapped.  The thought occurred to him to taste Wade, so he did. With his swollen lips parted, Peter ran his tongue over his Alpha’s shoulder, worrying the bumps and divots of the scars.  The smell of a full rut, and Wade succumbing to it, suddenly permeated the air.

Wade’s breathing was jagged.  Peter felt one hand run all the way down his back to his ass, where slick was dripping out of him and coating the backs of his thighs.  They both made desperate noises as Wade’s finger pressed inside. Peter bucked forward in response and felt precum -- either his or Wade’s -- dampen his torso.

“Fuck, Petey, I don’t know how you feel right now, but I hope you feel as alive as I do,” Wade groaned.  A second finger burned inside him alongside the first.

Peter choked against the sensation and jerked his hips forward again.  “I feel so good, Wade.”

“Yeah?” Wade panted hopefully.  “Your heat doesn’t hurt? You don’t feel empty?”

“No.  No, I don’t.”

And it was the truth.  Wade’s fingers brushed against the Omega nerves inside Peter, sliding with the sheer amount of slick that was pulsing out.  “And the more appendages you stick in me, the fuller I’m going to feel.”

Wade groaned again.  “Oh fuck, Petey, you are so hot.  I want to knot you so bad.”

“Then do it.”  Peter rocked his hips forward, crushing his cock against Wade’s.  “Knot me. Bond me.”

An inhuman growl vibrated between them, and suddenly Wade’s fingers were gone from inside him and were instead slickly gripping his waist.  The top of Peter’s head narrowly missed the iron frame of the upper bunk as Wade lifted him for a moment. When he came back down, it was directly on top of Wade’s leaking cock.

The reality of being an Omega was that Peter had been a virgin only a handful of months ago, and yet he’d been penetrated more times than he could count by now.  The other reality of it, however, was that he’d only been fucked once when he wasn’t in heat, when he wasn’t contending with the horrible empty pain that came with the four days of feverish desire and slick.  And the one time he’d had Wade when he wasn’t in heat, he’d been weighed down by heat suppressants, barely feeling the desire of the encounter.

This was the very first time that he’d had sex where the engulfing desire of a heat hadn’t been coupled with the agony of loneliness.  

It was utterly mind-blowing.

Peter couldn’t help but grip onto Wade as tightly as he could without tapping into his super strength.  The same sheen of sweat that had been on his own body before he’d fully hit his heat was now slicking up Wade’s back and shoulders, but he simply wrapped his arms around his lover and held on tightly as Wade shuddered in his embrace.

“ _ Fuck _ , you are so wet.  Fucking hell, this feels incredible.”

Unlike the heat during which Peter had been reduced to crying on the hotel carpet, too tense to allow for Wade to enter him without hurting him, there seemed to be no tension in his body anywhere.  Peter gently, purposefully clenched his muscles around the firm pillar of Wade inside him, eliciting a groan that rumbled through both their bodies. A moment later, the hands on Peter’s hips tightened again, lifting his whole body up a few inches before lowering him back down until he was fully seated.  The sensation of Wade’s naturally ribbed flesh rubbing on his inner walls made Peter’s spine feel like a combination of fire and water.

Wade lifted Peter again, and again, before Peter’s own limbs found the leverage they needed to help form a rhythm.  The sheer quantity of slick that was pulsing out of him with each thrust made obscene noises. Peter had never cared less.  All he could think about was Wade in front of him, and Wade behind him, and Wade inside him.

Pressure was building in his stomach already.

For a moment, Peter chased it, the muscles in his thighs working to support him as he slid up and down on Wade’s solid heat.  His impending orgasm lurched in his pelvis, and he felt the precum dripping out of him along with copious amounts of slick.

But he didn’t want to rush this, either.

“Wait,” Peter gasped.  He steeled himself against Wade’s helpful hands, and stilled.  The incessant pressure of his orgasm lingered for a moment before quickly receding.  “Wait.”

He could feel Wade’s hand petting his hair.  “You okay, baby boy? Is it too much?”

“No.  I just.  This is the best that sex has ever felt, and I don’t want it to be over so soon.”

They both sat there, panting, for a moment, Peter’s cheek resting on Wade’s broad shoulder.  He could feel Wade’s breathing and heartbeat against his chest, as though they shared one body.  

Slowly, he matched his breathing to Wade’s.  A little thrill went through him every time their hearts beat simultaneously.

And Wade gradually began to move, simply running his hands up and down Peter’s spine.  “Is this okay?” Peter murmured an affirmative, prompting Wade to slowly bring his lips to Peter’s neck.  “And this?”

“Yes.”  It was more of a breath than a word.

Wade’s scarred lips kissed along Peter’s skin, under his earlobe, to his shoulder.  Each place that their softness touched, Peter swore he could feel his heartbeat there, pounding in time with Wade’s, now.  He struggled to keep their breaths in rhythm, fighting his body’s desire to hurry towards the finish line.

Almost purring, Wade mouthed Peter’s skin.  The sensuality of it burrowed into Peter’s chest as well as his groin.  “Baby boy, I could taste you forever. You taste like spice. And love. And like the other half of me.”

More precum gathered at the tip of Peter’s dick, along with a pulsing rush of warmth throughout his body.

“Christ, don’t say that.”

“Why not?  It’s true.”

“Because you’re going to make me come.”

Wade chuckled lightly against Peter’s shoulder.  A second later, Peter felt the stiff, burning cock inside him flex, and the muscles in Wade’s back rippled.  Peter squeezed his eyes shut. “ _ Fuck _ , Wade…”

“That okay, baby boy?  Is it okay if I make you feel good?  Because I know you’ll come when I do, and I gotta say, my rut is absolutely burning right now.  I want you to feel good before I lose it.”

Peter could hear the effort in Wade’s voice, but he barely needed convincing.  “Yes, okay, yes,” he gasped. His attempts to keep his and Wade’s breaths the same were becoming more and more ambitious.

There was a growl in Wade’s chest that vibrated into both of them, deep and feral.  Another flex of Wade’s muscles had Peter arching his back as pleasure lit up his spine, and a second later, he felt Wade’s warm, slicked-up hand on his cock.

“Oh, oh  _ God _ .”  Peter swallowed thickly as Wade’s whole body seemed to clench again, making the cock inside him move.  “I’m not...I’m not going to last….”

“That’s okay, baby boy, because I’m not going to either,” Wade grunted, and then the hand between them was stripping Peter’s cock in earnest.

The reality of Peter’s life was that, at any one time, he had to think about a million things.  One of those things happened to be the some 8.6 million people living in New York City. There was no telling, really, what was going on outside the apartment at that moment -- how many people were in trouble, how many people were having a great day -- maybe even how many people were with their lovers.  There could have been any number of Alphas and Omegas together, right then. Maybe some of them were even bonding.

The important events in Peter’s life weren’t too scant, either.  Everything had shaped him, in one way or another, for better or worse.  Becoming Spider-Man had been one of the most important decisions in his life.  And yet.

There was nothing more important than this.

Nothing more important than how, in a little bedroom in Queens, he, Peter Parker, the hero called Spider-Man, was about to bond with Wade Wilson, the mercenary known as Deadpool.

Peter whimpered as he pulled back, found Wade’s lips, and kissed his partner.

His body was shaking, and tightening, and getting so, so close.

And then he felt Wade’s knot starting to grow inside him.

Peter clenched hard as his orgasm hit him, just ahead of Wade’s.  He could feel himself pulsing around the base of Wade’s cock, which was still expanding, and the sensation alone pulled a yell from his throat.  The urge to bite his Alpha rose in him as usual; he fumbled for Wade’s hand as Wade turned Peter’s head to the side.

Then, just as the wave of his orgasm seemed to be dying, he felt Wade’s knot hit a peak, and his body instinctively tightened again, forcing a second orgasm through his aching muscles with the force of an earthquake.  He shouted into the flesh of Wade’s hand as he pulled it into his mouth and bit down.

At the same time, he felt the pain of Wade’s teeth sinking into the back of his neck, at his hairline.  

As much as Peter wanted to collapse from exhaustion, from the sheer aftermath of the pleasure, he held Wade’s hand in his teeth, and felt Wade hold onto him with the same determination.  He could feel a warm trickle of blood run down the back of his neck. The coppery taste of breaking skin was in his own mouth, too.

Peter had long wondered how it would feel to bond.  When he’d found out that he and Wade could do it with bonding hormone, he’d even lied awake at night, trying to imagine how he’d know that the bond had taken hold.  How long would it take? Would he suddenly be overcome by affection? Lust? 

Now, he waited, heart pounding in time to Wade’s, to see what would happen.

The reality was that the first thing Peter noticed was Wade’s pulse slowing in his veins, and a moment later, he felt his own heartbeat seem to calm into a hypnotic state.  The whiplash from having his heart racing one moment to slowed the next made him dizzy.

But the dizziness didn’t fade after a moment or two like he expected.  Instead, the heady scent of Wade’s pheromones overwhelmed him, making him feel even more light-headed.  The scent seemed to mingle with his own, which he could suddenly smell -- a combination of spice with the overpowering scent of  _ Wade _ .

It took him a moment to realize that the reason he could smell himself so clearly was because Wade had taken on part of his own scent; Wade no longer smelled exclusively like himself, but like himself plus Peter.

And Peter was sure that his own scent had taken on a little bit of his Alpha.

Finally, the dizziness in his brain started to clear away, and he opened his eyes.

He wasn’t sure what he expected when the room came into view, but after the monumental moment that had just happened, it wouldn’t have seemed out of place for them to have somehow left their bodies and ended up floating in the sky.  Instead, he and Wade were entwined on this lower bunk, still clamped to each other by the teeth. Peter felt boneless, and chilled by his own drying sweat, despite the morning sunlight now spilling into his window.

Yet, he waited.  Wade was stroking long lines down his back with his free hand, not yet ready to release Peter’s neck from his grip, so Peter kept his jaw tight, too.  He made a questioning noise in his throat. The response was a quiet mumble, as if Wade were saying,  _ Just a moment longer. _

A minute later, true exhaustion started to take hold.  He was still seated on Wade, who had softened enough that they could detach if they wanted to -- although he wasn’t fully soft, and that was impressive in itself.  Still, Peter’s stamina didn’t seem nearly as long as Wade’s. His back ached a little, as did his neck where Wade’s teeth were still holding him, but everything ached in a good way.  He just felt so sleepy.

Peter barely registered the way that he was slowly fading, until he felt Wade’s hand slip a little as his jaw began to go slack.  The sensation of it startled him back alert for just a moment, and he clamped down with a vengeance for fear that he’d let go too soon.  But he didn’t last long. Wade was still drawing soothing designs into his back, and Peter was quickly descending into nothingness.

Somewhere, perhaps in the part of his brain where his spider-sense resided, he was dimly aware of Wade’s hand falling from his mouth, and of the pain in the back of his neck dulling as Wade let go.  He was also dimly aware of Wade slowly lowering him back into the pillow, of Wade pulling out.

By the time Wade returned with a washcloth to clean the dried blood from Peter’s already-healing neck and the slick from his thighs, Peter was mostly gone.  The only thing he thought he felt before he succumbed to sleep entirely was his Alpha’s voice reverently kissing his forehead and whispering his name.

“Peter.”

 

~~~~

 

The question as to how bonding with Wade would affect Peter’s heat was answered soon enough.  It had been an overwhelming relief when his second wave of heat had hit and it was not accompanied by maddening emptiness, but rather with a warm desire that made him feel pliable and yet electric under Wade’s touch.  He was still, of course, dealing with things that could be uncomfortable if he let himself think of them that way -- tenacious erections that came on during each wave, slick that ran down the backs of his thighs, and incredible sensitivity to the smell of Wade, who now smelled a little like Peter -- but by comparison, his heat was easy.  Bonding allowed him less desperation, fewer thoughts that he was worthless or helpless, and it even seemed to buy him a little more time between each wave. 

It also seemed to help him understand the nuances in Wade’s body more.  Without the distraction of the emptiness in his gut, he found himself paying more attention to how Wade’s scent changed minutely over the course of Peter’s heat.  They suddenly seemed more in sync with each other. It was absolutely fascinating.

The heat still lasted the same number of days as usual, though it didn’t seem nearly as long.  There was no denying that Peter’s body was tired by the end of it, all the same.

His waves started becoming less frequent by the fourth day, and he and Wade had more languid sex, made possible by the fact that Peter’s insides didn’t seem to be eating him alive.  As the sun began to set, he trembled apart in Wade’s arms, lying on his side on the bed with Wade behind him.

Wade held him close, his knot still full.

It took Peter a moment to realize that anything had changed, but as he stayed there, pulling in long breaths through his nose, he recognized something.

“You smell kinda different.”

Wade shifted behind him, making Peter wince slightly.  “I smell different?”

“Yeah.  Not as...I don’t know, not as strongly Alpha.”  He inwardly balked as soon as he said it; it sounded insulting out loud.  “I mean, not that you don’t seem like an Alpha, because you do, but…”

Wade chuckled and ran his hand through Peter’s sweaty hair.  “No, I understand, baby boy. And I think I know what you’re talking about.  I’m pretty sure I smell different because your heat is ending.”

“Why would  _ you _ smell different if  _ my _ heat is ending?”  Peter could feel that Wade was softening now, enough that he could probably pull out of Peter, but instead he stayed flush against his Alpha, not wanting to leave quite yet.

“Because I can smell that your heat is ending.  That clean smell is muddying up a little -- although it’s already been muddied up by my scent, a bit -- and my body is reacting to that.  You and I are bonded now. My body is going to respond to your cycle, even more than it did before.”

“So...whether I’m in heat or not is going to change the way that you smell?”

Wade’s lips found Peter’s ear and kissed it.  “Yep. And I’m guessing that if I have some horny days between your heats, you’re going to feel it, too.  Bonded Omegas respond to their Alpha’s ruts.”

“How often do you go into a rut between my heats?”

Wade squeezed him and growled into his hair.  “Depends on how sexy you look, Petey-pie. I could ravage you every day.  Because I’m yours and you’re mine.”

_ I’m yours and you’re mine. _  The words seemed to ring in Peter’s ears, and suddenly he remembered something.

“Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

Wade was soft enough now that Peter simply slipped right off of him; he darted off the bed, feeling far less bothered by the drying slick on his legs than he probably should have, and rifled through his desk until he found it.

A little red box.

When he turned around, Wade was sitting up, watching him curiously.  “Whatcha got there, Petey?” he asked, before turning to his shoulder and saying harshly, “Don’t get my fucking hopes up, Yellow.”

“It’s not an engagement ring,” Peter blurted quickly.  He didn’t want Wade to be disappointed by unjust anticipation.  “But it’s something May got for us. She and Uncle Ben did this, in lieu of bonding.”

He shuffled over to the bed, sat down beside Wade, and popped the box lid open.

Inside were two chains -- one yellow gold, and one white.

Unlike Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s necklaces, however, these two chains were just the right size for Wade’s big wrist and Peter’s smaller one.  Far more utilitarian for two men who had to clamber into spandex and leather in their freetime, and who had no space under their skin-tight suits for long, luxurious chains to hang down onto their chests.

Peter dug out the yellow gold one and turned to Wade, who silently held out his wrist, staring at the chain.

With deft fingers, Peter fastened the chain.  It fit fairly snugly against Wade’s skin. The links glimmered in the light from his bedroom lamp.

“That other one yours, Petey?” Wade murmured.  His voice sounded rough. “Let me put it on you.”

Suddenly, Peter felt a lump of emotion burning into his throat.  He held out the box and watched Wade fumble with the clasp on the white gold chain for a moment before holding out the open bracelet.  Peter placed his wrist in it. God, he was trembling.

“Wade, I…” Peter started, but he faltered as soon as he realized how serious the frog in his throat seemed to be.  He looked up at Wade, pleading for him to understand something that Peter wasn’t even sure he understood himself.

Wade finished the clasp and shook his head.  “You know what? This is the first time you’ve teared up during this heat.  You didn’t cry at all.”

“I didn’t have anything to cry about.”

Wade’s brown eyes darkened.  He leaned towards Peter slowly, as though he were afraid that Peter was just an image that would disappear the moment he got too close.  But Peter wasn’t going anywhere. He let his eyes flutter shut as Wade’s lips pressed against his own.

For a long moment, they simply kissed, the kind of kiss that spoke much more about love than sex.

Then Peter felt Wade pull his lips away, just a little.

“So did bonding change how you feel about me, baby boy?” he whispered, and Peter knew Wade well enough to hear the uncertainty in his voice.

Somewhere, in another world, battles were probably being fought, and weapons were probably being made, and heroes were probably putting their lives on the line.  But for right now, Peter wasn’t just Spider-Man, or even just a teenager, or even just Peter Parker.

He was an Omega, and he was Wade’s.

With one swift movement, he’d surged forward and pushed Wade onto his back so that Peter could rest on top of him.  The Alpha eyed Peter’s face for a moment, waiting for an answer.

Finally Peter gave it.  “No. Bonding didn’t change how I feel.  But there is something that I think is going to change over time.”

He felt Wade’s hands on his back, holding him closely.  “What’s that?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to love you more every single day.”

And that was the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may be an epilogue, but it will be written separately.
> 
> I live for your comments, as they inspire me deeply :)


End file.
